Dreaming of Sukka
by Starriey
Summary: Just random stories about my fave OTP that I end up coming up with. Read if you want, don't if you don't. I don't own A:tLA or Sukka (if I did they would have been in TLoK multiple times). Feel free to leave reviews if you want to.
1. Paper Work

A warrior fights and protects. A warrior stays alert and is always ready to spring into action at any moment. A warrior should not have to be doing paper work just because her current employer is a lazy bastard.

She'd been working for a good three hours and has barely managed to finish a fraction of the pile of parchments sitting beside her.

Suki sighs softly.

After the war, Suki and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors had taken to accepting jobs around the world. It gave them opportunities to travel and more importantly help a lot more people.

They were currently playing bodyguard for a rather important business man in Ba Sing Se, who for some damn reason seemed to always provoke people-namely citizens of the lower ring- and would end up getting attacked. They were given the week off due to the man spontaneously deciding he wanted to take a vacation with his new wife-new referring to both the short time that has passed since their marriage and in the fact that this woman was his fifth wife. Right before leaving, he asked Suki if she could take care of the paper work that he had left on his desk. The man stated that all she had to do with the scrolls was skim them, figure out what major complaints his customers sent in, and write it down so that he could take care of these requests once he returned. Thinking the task would not be very difficult, Suki agreed. Upon walking into his office though, she found his desks covered in the scrolls that had been sent in from customers, many of which seemed to be few months old. She finds herself wondering if he had been purposely saving up the messages just for the occasion of handing all of them over to to her to finish for him.

Seeing as the rest of her warriors had already gone back to their provided living space for the day, Suki decided to at least go somewhere she would feel comfortable enough to work so she packed the scrolls into a spare bag she found in the office and started walking towards the nearest monorail station.

A hellish four hours later, the Kyoshi Warrior found herself sprawled out on pile of cushions in her boyfriend's apartment in the middle ring of Ba Sing Se praying to the spirits she would be finished with the assignment soon. Of course her prayers weren't answered right then and there.

Usually it would not take Suki very long to do work as simple as the request her employer gave her but seeing as Suki was not a noble woman from the Upper Ring, she was having a hard time finding-let alone understanding-the complaints that her employer's rich customers sent in.

Seriously, who rationally complains about a product not matching their choice outfit for the day and, thusly, requests that the product come in many colors and patterns?

After another hour of reading, Suki found her mind wondering to other places, namely wondering when her lover would return from his own job-which, as of late, consisted of going to different meetings and talks that Aang and Fire Lord Zuko were required to attend.

Sokka had been on his way out the door when Suki ran in to him. Suki had a key to his apartment and had been told she could use it whenever she wanted, so it was only a natural choice for her to try to get some work done there. Sokka had been a bit surprised about seeing her. He already knew that she was in Ba Sing Se but had not gotten a chance to see her since the few weeks she'd been in the city. Sokka ended up walking her into the apartment, getting her something to drink, and questioning her about the bag full of scrolls before remembering he needed to leave. He, of course, made a big scene out of remembering-nearly choking on the drink he'd fixed himself when he remembered. He ended up frantically kissing her, grabbing his own bag, and tossing a quick, "there's some spare clothes in my room if you need some," and an "I love you," before dashing out the door.

Once he left, she decided to change clothes, opting for as little amount of clothing as possible rather than her full Kyoshi Warrior uniform, so that she was comfortable while doing her assigned task.

Suki sighs again. Rearranging some of the cushions before continuing to read. Despite, Suki's inability to understand how any of these complaints could be a big deal, she found herself starting to get through the scrolls faster than before. She was so concentrated on the rolls of parchment that she didn't even notice Sokka walk through the door, put down his bag, and stand in front of her until he suddenly picked her up bridal style and carried her to his bedroom

An hour later, Suki found herself naked in her boyfriend's bed trying to catch her breath.

"Dammit Sokka," she says in between breaths, " I still have work to do."

Her boyfriend was stretched out beside her in a similar state, nude and trying to compose himself. He grins at her before saying, "your fault for wearing such skimpy clothes and I thought you could use a break."

She smirks at him before kissing him for what must have been the hundredth time that hour. She could tell right away he was hoping for another round.

"So, which business are you planning on taking care of right now baby?" Sokka asked wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Suki giggles before biting her lip in a manner that always gave Sokka chills. Suki pokes his chest playfully.

"I suppose taking care of this piece of work will have to come first if I want to finish my other work.

"I suppose so," Sokka replies before pulling his girlfriend flush against his body.


	2. Wet

Over the last few weeks, Katara found herself thinking that it has been a long time since Team Avatar had seen one another. She took the liberty of inviting everyone to take a week-long vacation in Ba Sing Se. The house had been renovated over the years after Toph destroyed a good majority of it, back when the war was still happening and the Earth Kingdom needed to be warned about a possible attack from the Fire Nation. It was larger than the original one; big enough for pretty much everyone to have their own room if they wanted. Each room even had a door leading out to a lush garden in the back.

Katara couldn't help but feel a little giddy upon receiving messages from everyone informing her that they needed a vacation and would happily meet everyone else at Aang's house in the Upper Ring. Katara herself had been traveling between the Northern Water Tribe and Southern Water Tribe teaching water bending and felt rather tired due to not have much time to herself during her travels.

Katara ended up arriving at the house in Ba Sing Se first followed by Aang, Toph, Tylee, Zuko, and Mai. Katara greeted everyone cheerfully with a hug and especially made sure to greet Aang with a few kisses. She honestly missed everyone and found herself feeling giddy all over again when everyone greeted her warmly, even Mai, who tended to come off as cold and distant but had been warming up to everyone over the years. Katara was a bit curious as to why Tylee wasn't with Suki and decided to ask Tylee about Suki's whereabouts.

"I wanted to visit my family for a little while before meeting up here. So I left Kyoshi Island earlier than Suki. She may have meet up with Sokka knowing her." Tylee answers chipperly.

Everyone sat and talked in the main hall. Katara wondered aloud about where Sokka and his girlfriend of three years could be. Everyone mainly shrugged their shoulders.

"They're probably doing something they shouldn't be doing," Toph muttered.

"It wouldn't be the first time those two were late to something because they couldn't control themselves." Zuko states, shaking his head in a mock-disapproving manner.

"Like you can talk. You and Mai are just as bad," Toph scoffs.

Zuko blushes slightly as Aang and Katara just laugh, hoping that Toph would not accuse them of the same behavior.

Katara looked out of one of the windows in the hall hoping to see the sun shining only to find rain pouring down.

"I hope those two have something to keep them dry. It is raining pretty hard out there," Tylee says, practically reading Katara's thoughts after seeing the sudden change in weather.

Katara looks around the hall realizing no one has put their luggage up in their rooms yet.

"I guess we can all figure out what rooms we are staying in and put our stuff away," Katara announces once the many conversations that were taking place died down a little bit.

Everyone agrees and start to grab their bags, walking towards the hall where a good majority of the bedrooms were located.

As they walked down the hall everyone was a bit caught off guard upon hearing Suki's voice come from one of the rooms of the right side of the hall.

Everyone walked slowly towards the door trying to figure out what was going on.

"Sokka! Hurry up! I'm wet!" Suki exclaimed.

"Give me a second baby. Just calm down a little." Sokka replied, his voice sounding frantic.

The rest of the Gaang hovered outside of the door wondering what the hell was going on inside of that room. Considering Sokka and his girlfriend's tendencies, everyone found themselves assuming that the couple was sharing an intimate moment together and was about to walk away when they heard:

"Sokka! Seriously, it is your fault that I'm in this state so hurry up and fix it!" Suki yelled at her boyfriend.

"I'm coming, I'm coming! You know I don't really understand where…" Sokka trailed off as the door to his room suddenly swung open.

Katara stood in the door way with everyone else looking at her as if she had lost her mind. Katara had become annoyed with the conversation she was hearing and wanted it to stop, especially considering she did not want to continue hearing the loud exchange of words between the two lovers.

She was surprise to see her brother and Suki in dripping wet clothes. Sokka had a couple of towels and a change of clothes for both himself and his girlfriend in his hands. She probably should not have been that surprised considering she just saw that it was raining outside but she had been so sure that something else was going on inside of the couple's room.

"How'd you guys get in? We didn't even notice you guys arrived. And what happened to you guys?" Aang asks trying to break the silence that was occurring due to the awkward reunion Katara was currently having with her brother.

Suki, who had been standing in front of the fireplace that was located in their room, walks over to Sokka taking one of the towels in his hand and begins to try to dry her hair.

"We got in through the door that connects this room to the garden so that we wouldn't get the hall all wet while we were trying to come in. We were walking here and it started raining." Sokka starts.

"I told Sokka to bring an umbrella or jacket or something just in case, but guess who didn't do any of that?" Suki asks as she shoots her boyfriend a glare. Sokka pulls the towel more over Suki's head and holds it there playfully so that he doesn't have to see her glaring at him. Suki tries to hit him but misses, causing Sokka to chuckle. He pulls the towel back up and flashes Suki a smile before turning back to everyone else.

"So…any reason you guys were hanging around our door?" Sokka questions.

"Uh…n-no reason," Katara stutters.

"We were all just walking to our rooms…" Aang adds.

"And we heard you guys…" Zuko continues.

"We were going to say 'hi' but you two sounded…um..busy," Tylee states hesitantly, looking to Mai for some sort of back-up.

"Yeah, busy doing it," Toph adds, laughing heartily.

"Toph!" Katara exclaims.

Suki and Sokka both look at each other before facing everyone again.

"Why would you think that…?" Sokka inquires.

"Uh…don't worry about it. Anyways, I thought you were always prepared Plan Guy." Katara says in an attempt to escape any more questioning.

Sokka shrugs and rubs the back of his neck in a way that looked guilty and sheepish at the same time.

Katara shakes her head in mock-disapproval.

"I'm going to start cooking dinner. I'll come get you two when it is ready. Now finish drying off and hang up your wet clothes." Katara replies.

She then walks through the door way again as nonchalantly as possible, trying not to seem embarrassed by her misunderstanding of the situation, closing the door behind her.

"Were we even saying anything that could have been misinterpreted that badly?" Suki asks her boyfriend.

"I guess so. But I don't really remember saying anything that bad." Sokka replies.

Suki continues to dry her hair unable to notice the way Sokka was looking at her while she was under the towel. The white blouse she had been wearing had become see through, allowing the Water Tribe boy to see quite a bit of skin as well as his girlfriend's undergarment. He smirked softly, praising himself for getting away with the plan he had come up with on the spot upon noticing that the sky was starting to show signs of rain coming soon.

Sokka, being the Plan Guy, did actually have an umbrella and a coat in one of his bags but had decided to trick Suki into thinking he didn't have one just so he could get the view he was staring at right that very moment

Thinking he had completely just tricked everyone into thinking none of this was planned, Sokka let out a small chuckle.

Suki takes the towel off her head, having finished drying it, and grabs her spare clothes that Sokka had been holding on to until she had finished. She playfully punches him in the stomach before saying:

"Don't think you got away with anything you little perv. If you wanted a view that badly, you could have just asked rather than making me rush here for a good ten minutes in the rain.

Sokka smirks.

"When did you figure it out?" he asked.

"Earlier when Katara asked why you didn't have anything in your bag in case it started raining. It was so obvious you were pretending to feel bad about it and you've been trying to sneak glances at me way too many times" Suki giggles.

"Well she didn't seem to see through it," Sokka retorts, eyeing his girlfriend's body again.

"That's because she was too busy trying to get out of the room." Suki responds.

Sokka laughs before suddenly pulling Suki into a hug.

"Sokka…you're making me wet." Suki comments, returning Sokka's hug and giving a slight shiver from the wet clothes she had been standing in for the last ten minutes and had tried to dry in front of the fireplace earlier.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'm planning on making you even wetter and warming you up baby," Sokka whispers in Suki's ear.

Suki found herself hoping Katara wouldn't try to come check on them within the next hour because then she would have to explain why she was another kind of wet.


	3. House of Horrors

Sokka smiles at the two tickets in his hands as he walks a bit faster towards Zuko' s beach house on Ember Island.

Sokka managed to guilt trip Zuko into letting him borrow the beach house for a romantic getaway with Suki since Sokka arranged a cozy hut for Zuko and his wife, Fire Lady Mai, in the Southern Water Tribe when Zuko came to visit for a diplomatic meeting and a much needed vacation.

Sokka also managed to score two tickets to a play that would happen later that night. The supposedly scary play was called _House of Horrors_. Sokka heard many rumors of women fainting and men peeing their pants out of fear while watching the play. Sokka smiles to himself. He could see it now. The play would have many eerie scenes and fear will cloud the souls of every audience member or at the very least he hoped it would be that way for his girlfriend, who has never seemed fond of suspenseful and horror filled stories. He hoped that the play would scare Suki enough for her to want to hold on to him for the rest of the play and maybe even spend the night in his room; she, to his dismay, had suggested staying in separate rooms during their little vacation and Sokka wanted to change that as soon as possible. Sokka' s grin grew wider as he walks into the door of the beach house.

Suki was quite excited about spending time on the beach with her boyfriend of three years. He seemed to have gone through a lot of trouble just to get them some alone time at the beach house and she couldn't help but look forward to relaxing a little bit. She found herself already planning to go out to the shore with Sokka to hangout, hoping that he wouldn't be so infatuated with making sand sculptures of her, again, that he would forget she was there and leave her sitting in the sand by herself.

Sokka went into town for a little while, so Suki remained at the beach house and explored the parts of the house she had not had a chance to check out during her previous visits. Still in the middle of her mini adventure through the house, Suki heard foot steps behind her and looked over her shoulder. Her eyes were immediately met with a pair cerulean blue eyes.

"Dammit," Sokka whispers before letting a pout appear on his face. "I wanted to sneak up on you."

Suki shakes her head in mock disappointment before stating, "You have to do better than that if you want to sneak up on me. Also, I hate surprises so can you refrain from trying to sneak up on me please?"

"But that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?" Sokka counters, as he slowly walks toward his girlfriend with a mischievous smirk.

Suki responds by raising an eyebrow and asking, "Oh? And it would be fun for you to end up pinned to the floor again?"

Sokka abruptly stops walking toward his girlfriend and blushes softly out of embarrassment, trying not to recall the multiple times he'd manage to end up with his back against the floor and his girlfriend on top of him, with an annoyed look. Sokka begins walking towards Suki again, trying to act as if the conversation that just took place never happened. He pulls his girlfriend into a warm hug and doesn't have to wait long for the hug to be returned.

"So...," Sokka begins, in an attempt to change the subject. "How about we go to the theater tonight?"

"To see what?" Suki questions.

Sokka smiles before dramatically answering," It's a surprise."

Suki immediately pulls away from Sokka and frowns.

Knowing that Suki was about to protest, Sokka quickly closes the gap between them again by kissing her on the lips and pulling her into another hug.

"For me?" Sokka pleads, giving his girlfriend another pouty face.

Suki sighs before cautiously agreeing to Sokka's plans for later that evening.

"I'm going to go freshen up a little bit, then we can go eat dinner before going to the theater. This play better be good." Suki tells Sokka.

Sokka merely nods and watches his girlfriend walk down the hall towards the room she was planning on staying in for the rest of their little vacation. Sokka waits for her to be out of sight before taking the two theater tickets out of his pocket. He grins and whispering, "It'll be good alright."

* * *

The couple had just finished eating dinner and walking around town before finally arriving at the theater on the island. The last time either one of them had been inside was back when the Gaang was getting ready for Sozin's Comet and needed a little break. Sokka gives one the theater attendants the tickets as Suki looks at the posters that advertised the play that would be occurring that evening. She frowns.

"Really?" Suki asks.

"Yep," Sokka retorts, pulling Suki into the main auditorium before she could make a run for it. Sokka finds the two of them seats, gets Suki seated, and manages to get Suki to promise to not leave before going out to find snacks. Sokka returns with Fire Flakes and finds himself feeling a little scared, not so much from the play he was about to watch but because of the pissed off look his girlfriend was currently sporting as he made his way towards her. Sokka takes a seat next to her and digs into his snack.

"Fire Flakes?" Sokka offers the spicy snack to his girlfriend as a peace offering. At this rate, even if the play managed to frighten her half-to-death, Suki would be too angry at him to stay in his room. Unfortunately for him, Suki answers his offering by crossing her arms, turning her head away from him, and giving a little huff of annoyance. Sokka frowns and ends up finishing off his snack before the play even begins; he even thinks about getting up to get some more but the curtains suddenly open indicating that the play was about to start.

The stage began to fill with fog and the sounds of toad crickets and cat owls. Eerie voices began chanting, growing ever louder. Suddenly, men in scary masks popped out of hiding beside Sokka, Suki, and many other theater attendees.

Suki jumped. She wasn't expecting someone to suddenly jump out at her since she was paying attention to stage. She looks beside her, wondering if her boyfriend was just as scared, and breaks out into a fit of giggles. Sokka, out of fright, had fainted beside her and Suki was having trouble controlling her laughter over the matter. She checks to make sure he is still breathing before going into another round of giggles. Once she catches her breath, she stands up and cracks a smirk at her boyfriend.

* * *

Sokka woke up to a light breeze against his face. He felt like he was laying on something soft but couldn't tell where he was right away. He groaned slightly before opening one eye. His eye first spots a fan waving carefully in front of him before landing on the woman who was waving the fan. He slowly realizes that he is lying down with his head resting on his girlfriend's lap. It takes him a second more to realize that they were back at the beach house and another second to remember what had happened.

"Really?" Sokka whispers.

"Yep," Suki retorts, trying to keep from giggling again, "welcome back to the land of the conscious."

"How long have I been out?" Sokka asks, closing his eyes again since he didn't want to see Suki struggling to not giggle.

"About an hour."

"The play had barely started."

"It wasn't even a minute into the play."

"How'd we get back here."

"Carried you."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Wasn't I heavy?"

"Definitely."

"Hey!"

"You asked. Plus, it's not like I would have left you there."

"...Thanks...that was pretty scary..."

"And you wanted to sit through that whole play."

Sokka chuckles softly before nodding his head. He then sighs, thinking about how his plan had failed miserably. Now how was he supposed to...

"If you're still scared you can sleep with me in my room tonight," Suki suggests nonchalantly. Sokka's heart skips a beat as he wonders what kind of connection the two of them must have in order for Suki to practically read his mind at that moment. He opens his eyes slowly before grinning at her.

"Really?" Sokka asks.

"Yep." Suki retorts before kissing her boyfriend's lips

Sokka smiles against Suki's lips. Sokka got what he wanted, at least for tonight, but he could have done without the added embarrassment of fainting.


	4. Cherry Blossoms

Sokka grins at his blindfolded girlfriend. He gently pushes on her back, prompting her to continue walking forward down a path in the forest. Sokka finds himself having to quietly readjust his backpack, as its contents move about inside, so that Suki couldn't hear, let alone know, what he had brought with him.

"Where are we going?" Suki asks, waving her arms in front of her in an attempt to find something, anything near her that could help her figure out where Sokka was taking her.

Sokka chuckles at her blindly swatting the air.

"A place I think you will like a lot," Sokka replies in hopes of soothing the discomfort his girlfriend usually had towards surprises.

"How many times have I heard that?" Suki questions playfully.

"What can I say? I like surprising people." Sokka retorts matter-of-factly.

Sokka continues to lead Suki further down the path before suddenly telling her to stop.

"Just stand right there, keep your blindfold on, and I'll be back to get you in just a second," Sokka tells her.

"W-wait...what? W-where are you going?" Suki stutters, not particularly fond of the idea of standing by herself with a blindfold on and no notion of her current whereabouts.

"I'll be right back, don't worry baby." Sokka answers, kissing her on the lips reassuringly.

Sokka then walks a little further down the path, finding a clearing in the forest. He sets down his bag and hastily tries to set-up the rest of the surprise he had for his girlfriend.

* * *

About three weeks ago, while working in Omashu, Suki and Sokka had been having trouble sleeping so they ended up chatting about random topics. During their conversation, Sokka ended up asking Suki if there was something she'd never seen before but wished to see. She excitedly talked about how she had seen breathtakingly beautiful paintings of cherry blossoms but had never seen real ones before since there were none on Kyoshi Island. Sokka found her excitement over the matter enough of a reason to look into finding somewhere that would fulfill Suki's wish. Having failed at finding a place on his own, Sokka wrote to Zuko and Aang about whether they knew of any locations with cherry blossoms that they may have come across while traveling. Zuko wrote him back first, telling Sokka of a Village Resort, on the coast in northwestern part of the Earth Kingdom, where he and General Iroh had stayed for a few days while he was still the banished prince of the Fire Nation. Sokka found himself scrambling to find out the exact location of this Village Resort, in between attending at diplomatic meetings, before planning how he would surprise Suki.

* * *

Sokka finishes setting up before going to retrieve Suki.

"All ready!" Sokka declares, scaring Suki in the process,"Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"Dear Kyoshi! This is why I don't like being blindfolded, let alone surprised." Suki retorts.

"Well, I pretty sure you will like this surprise. Follow me." Sokka says, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the clearing.

Once there, Sokka helps Suki sit down slowly.

"Ready to take your blindfold off?" Sokka asks. Suki nods her head in response. Sokka slowly unties the blindfold that is covering his girlfriend's eyes, making her both annoyed and antsy to see what Sokka's surprise was.

"Ta-dah!" Sokka exclaims. Suki blinks a few times, unable to fully process where she was and the view she was getting to see. She opens her mouth, about to say something, but closes it when no words form. A smile appears on her face as she continues to stare at the beautiful cherry blossoms that surrounded her and her boyfriend.

"Does it look as beautiful as you were hoping?" Sokka asks. His question is answered by a kiss on the lips and another smile. Suki can't help but continue to look around her, taking in the area around before looking down to notice that Sokka had also set-up a picnic for the two of them. Her smile grows even wider. She pulls Sokka into another kiss, longer and more passionate than the last.

"You honestly are an amazing boyfriend," Suki tells him when they finally break apart for air.

"I know," Sokka replies confidently. Suki swats at him playfully due to his extremely confident agreement with her statement.

Suki continues looking around, unable to take her eyes off of the gorgeous blossoms around her.

"Are you hungry? I am...," Sokka declares suddenly, breaking the mood just a little bit. Despite this, Suki laughs before answering his question with a nod of her head. Sokka grins, splits the food he brought between himself and Suki, and digs in.

"So how did you find out about this place?" Suki asks after eating for awhile. She looks over to see her boyfriend in the middle of chewing and laughs a little as he tries to quickly swallow his food.

"Zuko, told me about this place when I asked him if he knew of any locations with cherry blossoms. You seemed enthusiastic about the idea of going to see them so...yeah," Sokka explains once he finally manages to swallow the food he was chewing. "But it was my idea to get here at night, so it would be too dark for you to see the cherry blossoms when we arrived and to blindfold you before we even left our room at the resort." Upon finishing this statement, Sokka finishes off the rest of his food. Suki finds herself only able to laugh at his appetite and hope her lovable goof wouldn't choke during his zealous eating.

"I guess we will have to properly thank Zuko then," Suki begins,"I suppose I also need to thank you properly for this too."

Suki's smile turns into a mischievous smirk, which Sokka notices right away. Sokka hastily attempts to clean up the leftovers and trash from the picnic by stuffing them into his bag. Suki giggles at her boyfriend's eagerness to receive Suki's thank you "gift". Once Sokka is sure everything is out of the way, he sits back down and scoots close to Suki before whispering, as suavely as he can, "You know, you're way more beautiful than these cherry blossoms." Suki can't help but giggle, for what must have been the hundredth time since arriving at the clearing in the forest, all the while trying to help Sokka remove her clothing.


	5. Search

**Sorry that this took so long to upload. I had to think about how I wanted the story to progress and got stuck in some places when it came to transitioning. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

**I own none of these characters!**

* * *

It had been many months since the end of the 100 Year War. The Gaang was busy, quelling rebellions and meeting with different villages in hopes of restoring peace among the many other tasks that needed to be taken care of.

Everyone had gone their respective ways, separating the work that needed to be done. Zuko returned to the Fire Nation, hoping to straighten out the many problems left by his father's reign. He was joined by Mai, Suki, Tylee, and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors. Aang traveled all over the place, helping out wherever he could. Sokka returned to the Southern Water Tribe to help rebuild, along with Katara who, after a while, left again in order to help Aang in his travels. Toph traveled on her own, hoping to find somewhere to start up the idea she had recently come up with-a metal bending academy.

Sokka, though happy to be home, decided he wanted to help out in other places too and, thusly, join his sister and Aang in their travels. Despite it being what he wanted, Sokka couldn't help but feel out of place during his time traveling again with Aang and Katara. One reason being because the young couple managed to give him the "oogies" every five minutes and the other being because he didn't have his awesome space sword or trusty boomerang to help out in quelling rebellions. Sure his club was nice, and it did the job it was supposed to do, but Sokka couldn't help but miss the weapons he had lost during the final battle in the Fire Nation.

* * *

It was almost Sokka's birthday apparently. Katara, who-like her brother-was keeping in contact with Suki, had reminded the Kyoshi Warrior on multiple occasions that Sokka would be having a rather large party for his 16th birthday, which was an important age in the Water Tribe culture. Katara had asked Suki multiple times if she would be willing to come celebrate with them but Suki had to decline. Due to her own stupidity, she ended up scheduling a new job in the Earth Kingdom for herself and her warriors at the time when Sokka's party would be happening. Suki even went ahead and apologized to Sokka in a letter about not being able to visit him during his birthday, promising that she would meet up with him later to have their own party, gifts included. Sokka, though sounding disappointed even through his writing, said that he would miss her and that he would look forward to seeing her again.

Suki sighs. She was lying in her bed at the Fire Nation palace, unable to go to sleep. Feeling bad about not being able to attend Sokka's party, she found herself trying to think of an amazing gift to give lover in hopes of making it up to him. She, unfortunately, was having some trouble thinking of anything. The few ideas that did manage to pop into her head were immediately discarded and left her back at square one. She tries to think back to the conversations and letters she had exchanged with Sokka over the few months, hoping that he may have mentioned wanting something. The only thing that comes her to mind is food and her boyfriend's seemingly bottom-less pit of a stomach. She sighs again before giving up for the night and focusing on going to sleep.

She woke up to the rustling of sheets, a shaking bed, and hushed giggles. She only bothers to open one eye fully aware of what was happening. Her eye immediately lands on two of her warriors, Sun and Ai, excitedly jumping on her bed in an attempt to rouse her from her slumber. Suki rarely over-slept but when she did, she was usually woken up in this manner. The two younger girls giggle when they see that Suki had noticed them.

"Time to wake up!" Ai informs her cheerfully.

Suki grabs her covers, about to pull them over her head, but is stopped by Sun.

"Come on. Come on. Tylee is making us breakfast!" Sun tells her while pulling the covers back down, grabbing a hold of one of her arms soon after.

Suki groans before muttering, "Whatever happened to sleeping in on days off?"

"You can do that some other time. It's not every day we get Tylee's cooking" Ai replies, joining Sun in her attempts to pull Suki out of bed.

Suki had to admit Tylee was a great cook and that she would love to eat one of Tylee's many delicious dishes but Suki was still very tired, having woken up from her slumber multiple times throughout the previous night. About to pull herself out of Ai and Sun's grip, she makes the mistake of looking at the two younger warriors, who were cutely pouting since their leader wouldn't accompany them to breakfast. Unable to resist their pouting faces, Suki allows them to pull her out of bed and lead her towards the palace garden, where the Kyoshi Warriors would be eating breakfast. She needed to get up anyway if she wanted to put some more thought into what she should give her boyfriend for his birthday.

"You're awake! Hurry before the food gets cold!" Tylee prompts Suki.

* * *

Well into their breakfast, the Kyoshi Warriors start talking, mainly exchanging gossip they heard about during their guard duties and chatting about other random topics. Usually, when they were working, breakfast conversations were limited to giving out commands and instructions on what needed to be done during that day and by whom. Since it was their day off, the conversations between the warriors were fairly relaxed.

"I mean seriously. You can't have eggs without sausages for breakfast. That's like Foaming Mouth Guy without his foaming mouth. You honestly can't have one without the other." Sun stated, currently arguing with the three other Kyoshi Warriors: Jia, Ruomei, and Yuke.

"It's like the sun without the moon," Ai pipes in.

Jia, Ruomei, Tylee, and Yuke giggle, quickly turning the current conversation topic into a game.

"It's like light without the dark," Tylee adds.

"It's like Ty without that chest of hers," Jia states, snickering softly when Tylee blushes.

"It's like Sokka without his boomerang." Ruomei, the youngest of the warriors, says, also wanting to play the game.

"Does Sokka even have his boomerang anymore?" Yuke asks, directing the question towards Suki.

Suki suddenly jumps up from her seat, causing everyone's attention to be on her.

"No, but hopefully he will soon!" Suki exclaims.

Suki rushes back to her room to get dressed, since she was still in her pajamas, and packs a bag with some food and other supplies she thinks she may need for the adventure she would be taking that day, before rushing out of the palace.

"Where is she going?" Ai asks.

Her only response is a chorus of "I don't know's" and shrugging shoulders.

"Welp, all I know is that I'm temporarily in charge while Suki is gone," Jia announces.

"But you always get to be in charge when she's gone," Ruomei huffs.

"She's the second oldest so she's automatically second in charge," Ai answers.

"I don't like it when Jia is in charge though. She makes us do weird things," Ruomei pouts. Ai places a hand on her shoulder, trying to offer her some sort of reassurance that nothing weird would happen. This comfort is quickly shattered when Jia yells," alright ladies! We have a pressing matter to attend to! We need to find all of the turtle ducks because I'm extremely sure one is missing!"

The younger warriors sigh at the random and strange command from their acting-leader.

"I hope Suki returns soon!" Ruomei whines.

* * *

This idea seemed a lot easier to carry out in her head.

Suki was walking through the forest that Sokka, Toph, and herself had been hovering above during their final battle that took place only a few months ago. She looks up at the canopy of trees and the sky hoping to find any sign of her boyfriend's boomerang and space sword. Honestly, she knew the task that she had set out to do was nearly impossible given the size of the forest she was currently standing in; on top of that, trying to find her way back out was going to be interesting too but she had to give it a shot atleast.

She'd been walking through the forest for several hours, only stopping to eat something quickly and to patch up a fairly large scratch she ended up getting while accidently finding thorns among some shrubs and bushes that she had been searching through.

She was beginning to lose hope that she would ever find what she came for and started to consider turning around so that she could make it back to the palace before night fall. She ends up deciding to walk for another hour before returning.

She continues searching. Looking through trees and bushes, knowing quite well that she couldn't possibly cover every inch of this forest. She sighs and turns around about to leave when something shiny catches her eye.

* * *

Sokka's party had been a blast. Many of the Southern Water Tribe members were there as well as Zuko and Aang. Toph had declined his invitation to his party when he'd last seen the master Earthbender, blaming it on the cold climate and lack of ground with which she could "see". Sokka had gotten a variety of presents, from jerky to a knife that was his father had made especially for him. Though Sokka had fun, he couldn't help but wish the next two weeks would go by quickly, since at the end of those two weeks he would be going to visit Suki on Kyoshi Island to have a smaller celebration for his birthday.

Two weeks passed by and Sokka found himself on a Southern Water Tribe ship heading to see his lover. Sokka, being impatient, paced around the ship for the good majority of his journey and only settled down when it was time to eat or sleep, but only a little.

* * *

If Sokka couldn't stay still before, he definitely couldn't now that he could see the shore of Kyoshi Island. His lack of patience became worse when he noticed Suki and her warriors on the shore, waving at his ship. He absolutely lost all patience when he was able to see his girlfriend smiling at the ship, despite being a good kilometer away from the shore. He wanted to jump off the ship and run to shore more than anything at that point and almost did; the only reason he wasn't currently swimming with the Unagi was because the few crew members that were aboard the ship were currently holding him back so he would not become fish food.

The moment the ship docked, Sokka ran off in Suki's direction while the ship's crew merely chuckled and shook their heads at his impatience and love-sickness. The moment Sokka reached Suki he picked her up, spun her around, and peppered her with kisses. He only stopped when Jia muttered, "damn. He can't even give anyone a proper greeting before overwhelming his girlfriend with public displays of affection." The other warriors giggled both at her comment and the fact that Sokka was now sticking his tongue out at Jia. Naturally, Jia returned his gesture by sticking out her own tongue followed by flicking him off, to which Sokka just chuckled.

"How are you gals?" Sokka asks in order to satisfy Jia, acting as if he hadn't just swept Suki off of her feet.

"Good but we'll be even better once we get this party started!" Sun replies cheerfully.

Sokka chuckles before whispering in Suki's ear, "And how have you been beautiful?"

Despite her usual calm demeanor, Suki found herself blushing and giggling at her boyfriend, whispering her reply back to him.

"Aish! You are giving me…what's the word he always says?" Jia asks the rest of the girls standing beside her.

"The 'oogies'!" Tylee replies chipperly.

"Ah, yes, the 'oogies'. Now, if you two are done with your flirting, let's go already!" Jia declares.

"What's the rush? I thought we weren't going to have the party until the day after he arrived?" Ruomei questions.

"We are having it tomorrow. Jia just wants to get back to the dojo 'cause that cute guy from yesterday is coming back today," Yuke replies before turning towards Sokka to tease him. "You should be careful Sokka he was checking Suki out every chance he got."

Sokka laughs before arrogantly saying," I'm fairly sure he'll have a hard time getting Suki to even remotely like him in a romantic way. After all, she is head-over-heels in love with me."

The other Kyoshi warriors pretend to gag and puke due to Sokka's cocky statement. Suki rolls her eyes at him and swats at his arm but all of her warriors notice the smile that spreads across her face when he isn't looking.

"Anyways, we should get going before Jia goes crazy worrying about whether or not that guy is there yet," Ai suggests.

* * *

Later that night, Suki was cuddled up beside her boyfriend in her bed. Honestly, the bed was made for one person, but neither one of them were particularly worried about the lack of space. Suki had a candle lit on the night stand beside her bed, so that they could still see each other as they talked.

"Anything in particular you want to eat for your party?" Suki asks him. Sokka begins to answer only to be interrupted when Suki says, "besides meat. We've already got that covered." Sokka laughs, happy his girlfriend knew meat definitely had to be on the menu.

"I don't really know what else I want," Sokka muses, "I can literally just eat meat and be fine. I guess just get whatever anyone else wants to eat."

Suki can't help but laugh at him for only being interested in meat. She stops when she notices him staring at her.

"What?" She asks.

Sokka suddenly kisses her. She smiles before pulling him into a deeper kiss.

"Oh, yeah! I wanted to give it to you now." Suki suddenly declares after separating her lips from her boyfriend's.

"Give what to me?" Sokka asks cheekily, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Suki laughs before giving him a quick peck on the cheek and saying," I didn't mean that but we can do that later if you want. I meant your birthday present."

"Oooooh. What is it?" Sokka prods.

"Give me a second. I'll go get it." Suki tells him, quickly untangling herself from her boyfriend and the sheets on her bed.

She returns a moment later with a large box and prompts Sokka to sit up so that he can open the gift. Sokka finds himself caught off guard by the size of the box. Suki wasn't the sort of person that would splurge on gifts or buy extremely bulky objects such as what seemed to be in the box. Suki sets the present on Sokka lap before getting back into the bed to watch him open his present.

"I hope you like it," Suki says softly. She found herself worrying over whether she should have bought him another gift to go along with the one he was currently holding. After all, she hadn't really done more than look for the contents that were currently in the box and it was barely her idea to go searching for those items to begin with.

Sokka lifts an eyebrow making it obvious that he had absolutely no clue what could be in the box. Suki smiles before prompting him to open it. Sokka's shocked by what he sees.

"What? How? When…?What?" Sokka looks at her with a look of both confusion and happiness.

"I had a free day when I was back in the Fire Nation doing guard duty at the palace, so I went out to the forest and just started looking. I figured you probably missed them," Suki replies, softly resting her head on Sokka's shoulder.

"Yeah, but that forest is huge. How did you managed to find them?" Sokka asks, letting his hand run across his boomerang and space sword that he'd thought were gone for good.

"I lucked up really. I was literally about to leave when I saw something shiny in a patch of shrubs. Even then I wasn't expecting to come across your sword. I lucked up even more because your boomerang was pretty close by too. I guess the spirits were just on my side," Suki explains, chuckling a little at how far-fetched and unrealistic the story sounded,"happy birthday."

Sokka suddenly captures Suki's lips, hugging her gently. He breaks away from the kiss only to pepper more kisses all over her face and down her neck. Suki bites her lip hoping to keep any sounds from escaping her mouth. Sokka pulls her into a tighter hug and rests his chin on her shoulder.

"Thank you," Sokka whispers in her ear. Suki shivers at how Sokka's voice sounds at that moment. Sokka pulls away from her and smiles before saying, "but there is something else I would really love to have right now too?"

"Oh? And what's that?" Suki asks, her heart dropping a bit when she finds herself thinking that Sokka was not absolutely happy with the present.

"You."

"But don't you already?"

Sokka smirks before tugging at the pajamas that his girlfriend was wearing. Suki blushes softly when she realizes what Sokka means.

"I do. And I'm the luckiest guy in the world for that. So it's only right for the luckiest guy in the world to show his lovely girlfriend just what she means to him."

Sokka pulls Suki into another kiss, slowly helping her lie down in the bed. Suki smiles against the kiss, finally allowing herself to stop worrying over whether or not Sokka liked his present.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Leave comments and reviews if you would like. Also if there are any major grammar errors let me know! I'm still in college so I have to improve my writing skills anyways.**


	6. Nightmares

_Sokka_

At the age of 5, Sokka's nightmares consisted of angry polar bear dogs and monsters. His mother would always comfort him when he woke up crying in the middle of the night.

At age 10, Sokka's nightmares consisted of his mother disappearing suddenly and his father never returning. Whenever he had these nightmares, he would sneak into Katara's room, knowing that she would understand-she always had nightmares about the same things and would go to Sokka's room when she had them.

At age 15, he'd started traveling around with Aang and Katara. His nightmares always seemed to change based off of what was happening during their travels. He still had nightmares of his parents but he found that other fears filled his nightmares as time went by. At first, his nightmares mainly consisted of losing Katara but the more people he befriended the more he found himself worrying about losing them. He was too old to have someone comforting him after having nightmares-at least that is what he had believed.

By end of winter, he found his sleep being disturbed by nightmares filled with losing his first love, Yue, again and again. By the end of spring, his nightmares consisted of losing Katara, Aang, and Toph. By the time, Zuko joined the Gaang, Sokka found his nightmares plagued with losing Suki, who had been captured by Azula. By the end of the war, he his nightmares consisted of losing his family and the many friends he had made during his adventures with Aang.

* * *

He was having the same damn nightmare again. The airship Suki was standing on was falling from the sky. He screams her name trying to reach her, but to no avail. In real life, she had returned, he knew that very well, but this nightmare, twisting his memories, ended with him not seeing her again.

* * *

Sokka's eyes shoot open and he sits up suddenly. He's sweating profusely, his heart is beating way too fast, and his breathing is ragged.

"Sokka…? Are you okay?"

Sokka looks to his left and looks at his concerned girlfriend.

"I'm fine," Sokka whispers.

"Another nightmare?" Suki asks softly. She picks up one of her fans on the night stand beside her and scoots closer to Sokka. She opens it quickly and starts to fan her boyfriend gently.

Sokka stares at her, trying to recollect his thoughts and calm his breathing.

"Yeah. Just a nightmare," he answers after a while.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm fine…."

Suki cups Sokka's cheek with one of her hands, the other continuing to fan him. Sokka nuzzles her hand in response.

"You're here so I'm fine," Sokka whispers.

* * *

_Suki_

She was sprawled out on the floor after being thrown down there by one of the guards. She got to her feet slower than usual, she hadn't slept well the night before and her lack of sleep was seriously hindering her at that moment. She feels something wet on her lips so she brings her hand up to her mouth in order to wipe it off. It's blood. She must have bitten her lip earlier in the fight she was having with the guards standing in front of her.

This was quite normal for her. Guards, finding it fun, would always go into prisoners' cells and start beating them up. It had happen five times over the two months she had been there so this was nothing new. All she had to do was block their attacks and take what she was dealt. Dodging or fighting back would just make them angry and more likely to hurt her even more.

She hadn't been this passive before but that was before she came here; the first time, she'd gotten a beating even worse than what she was getting at that moment, thanks to her own stubbornness and sass.

There were always at least three different guards whenever they decided to go around and have some fun with the prisoners. They would take turns, one after another, until they were satisfied with how hurt the prisoner seemed. They would leave the prisoner there, in whatever terrible state they were in, and go find their next victim.

One of the guards suddenly pushes Suki up against the wall of her cell, grabs her arms, and pins them above her head.

"What do you say we have a different kind of fun with you tonight? After all Princess Azula did give us permission to use you as our main source of entertainment," one of the guards said.

This wasn't the usual. The other two guards smirked at one another before walking towards her and their coworker.

"Well she is a pretty little firecracker. Might as well play with her for a little while," one of them retorts. He suddenly lifts up her shirt and lets his hands roam.

"Hey! Let go of me! Stop it!" Suki snaps. Suki lashes one of her legs out, about to kick the guard who was touching her but misses when she is suddenly punched in the stomach by the third guard. The guard who is holding her hands above her head suddenly lets go only to bring his hands around her neck, choking her.

"Shut it, bitch!" he snarls. Suki glares at them but they just laugh, knowing that they would have their way with her sooner or later. Suki tries to hit one of them again but gets punched a second time. She closes her eyes when she feels tears threatening to surface.

The guard who had previously been helping himself to her skin had finally stopped and the guard who was choking her had loosened his grip around her neck. Suki punches the first one and kicks the second one in the groin only to be tackled to the ground by the guard who had punched her earlier.

"You know that you're going to pay for that right?" the guard whispers in her ear, "why don't we get down to business before this little firecracker goes off again?" He motions for the other guards to hurry over before quickly pinning her arms. The guard she had punched for touching her walked over and began pulling down her pants, all the while trying to pin her legs that were wildly kicking at him.

"Stop it!" Suki screams.

* * *

"Suki? Suki!"

Someone is calling her name. Who is it?

"Suki! Suki!"

It was Sokka.

"Calm down, darling. It's okay. It's going to be okay!"

Someone is screaming. Who is it?

"You're safe now, darling. You'll strain your voice if you keep screaming."

It was her.

Suki stops screaming and tries to catch her breath. She feels something wet sliding down her face so she moves her hand up to wipe it away. They're tears. She frowns. She looks to her right and sees her boyfriend with a worried look on his face. More tears fall down her face, to Suki's annoyance. Sokka wipes them away gently. She turns away from Sokka, not wanting to look him in the eye.

"Was it about being in prison again?"

She responds with a quiet, "yes."

"Want to talk about it?"

Suki shakes her head slowly.

"Want a hug?"

She allows herself to turn back towards him, letting a weak smile appear on her face. She nods her head and allows Sokka to hold her tightly.

"You're safe now." Sokka repeats.

* * *

**Yeah... This one's sadder but I wanted to show a more emotional side to Sukka's relationship. Also, I feel like the way I wrote Suki's nightmare was a bit awkward but I hope I conveyed how she felt well enough. Let me know what you think. **


	7. Invention

Zuko leads Suki into one of the many office spaces in the Fire Nation palace before telling her to stand in front of an obscure object on the desk in the office.

"Um…what was I supposed to say again…?" Zuko mutters under his breath, "stand in front of this device…or something…and wait for it to make some sort of noise…?"

Zuko stands beside the Kyoshi Warrior awkwardly and rubs his forehead. An annoyed expression is plastered on his face. Suki lifts up an eyebrow at the Fire Lord and is about to ask him what was going on but stops when he begins to speak again.

"When it makes a noise pick up the this piece," Zuko explains, tapping on a piece of the metal structure, whose shape reminded Suki of a cup.

"What do I do when I pick it up?" Suki asks, still confused as hell about what was going on.

"Press it against your ear…or close to it at least…" Zuko replies.

"My ear?"

"Yeah….and then pick up this other piece," Zuko continues, now tapping what seemed to be the base of the device, "and bring it close to your mouth…."

"And then…?" Suki prompts, trying to get Zuko to continue.

"You speak into it…."

"What do I say…?"

"I don't know. Anything you want to say I guess…."

The awkwardness was palpable and was making both parties of the conversation uncomfortable. Zuko continued to sport an aggravated expression while Suki merely looked confused.

"I don't know. That's what I was told to say," Zuko divulged, "I need to go finish up some work…so yeah…just pick that piece up when it makes a noise and speak into this other piece…yeah, that sounds about right."

Zuko walks away still leaving Suki to continue soaking in confusion. She stands there for a while, before deciding to investigate the device a little had multiple wires stick out every which way and only seemed to have two major parts, despite her expecting there to be more parts. The design of the object was rather crude, likely to have been made solely for a function rather than to look good.

Suki jumps when she suddenly hears a noise from the object. Remembering Zuko's instructions, she picks up the cup-like piece and holds it close to ear then picks up the base of the device and holds it close to her mouth.

"…Ummm…" Suki mumbles, unsure of what to even begin to say.

"Hey baby!"

Suki almost drops the device when she suddenly hears her fiancée's voice.

"Sokka…?" Suki asks, still trying to get over the shock she just had.

"Yep. The one and only!" Sokka replies, chuckling at how confused his soon-to-be wife sounds.

"What's going on?"

"I'm testing out my new invention," Sokka starts, "I don't have a name for it yet but it will let people talk to one another even if their locations are far away."  
"I see…so this is what you've been working on since I last saw you or is this a newer project?"

"A newer one. I'm still waiting for some parts for the one I was talking about last time."

"Oh….What made you decide to suddenly work on inventing something like this? Got tired of waiting multiple days for people to answer your letters?"  
Sokka laughs at her second question since he had complained many times to her about the topic over the six years they had been together.

"Nah. Although I could totally fix that problem with this, I had a bit more of a selfish reason for building this invention," Sokka responds.

"Oh? And what could be more selfish than not wanting to wait for people's messages?" Suki inquires.

"Wanting to hear your beautiful voice…," Sokka answers.

Suki is silent for a while.

"You're funny. Why did you really?"

"I'm being serious."

Suki is a bit dumbfounded by the fact that Sokka created a whole device just to talk to her. After Sokka had proposed to her, she ended up having to go back to the Fire Nation to help out Zuko. That was admittedly about four months ago. It's not like she was trying to stay away from her soon-to-be husband for so long, but she got caught up in work and she just ended up only really sending Sokka letters over the past few months.

"…You're crazy…making something just so you can talk to me…letters aren't that bad you know," Suki says softly, trying to hide the fact that she was a little embarrassed but extremely happy-to the point of almost crying out of happiness-about Sokka's invention. She finds herself touching the betrothal necklace around her neck, that Sokka had made for her.

Sokka chuckles again.

"But we both know that I'm too impatient for that," He starts, "I've missed you a bunch, my Kyoshian rose."

Suki looks around her and peeks out the entrance of the office, trying to make sure no one else was around before saying, "I've missed you more, my sexy Southern wolf." Suki finds herself blushing an even brighter shade of red due to calling Sokka by one of the pet names she had given him. She was used to saying it in more private situations without the possibility of others hearing her and knew she would get teased by the other Kyoshi warriors or Mai if they heard her. The pet name itself wasn't embarrassing but being called a hypocrite was. Suki usually acted as if pet names were rather stupid and way too cutesy for her taste whenever she was talking to Mai or her warriors about couples that used them in public.

"I'm going to come visit soon, okay?" Sokka informs her.

"Really?"

"Uh huh. Think you will be able sneak off for a little while?"

"Maybe. My girls probably won't be too happy with me if I leave Jia in charge though. You know how she gets."

Sokka can't help but burst out laughing at the mention of Jia's leadership tendencies.

"Yeah, but you could always give everyone the day off."

"You know I can't do that without seeing if Zuko is fine with that first."

"I swear that jerk-bender is forever ruining my plans," Sokka jokes.

"Well he didn't seem to ruin this one. I'm guessing you're the one that made him try to explain how to use this?"

"Yeah but teaching him how to use it was like trying to pull teeth from an armadillo lion."

"Not surprising. It felt really awkward when he was explaining it to me and he seemed really annoyed the whole time."

"Are sure that wasn't Zuko just being Zuko? Awkward and angry is pretty much his whole being."

"That's rude Sokka," Suki chides.

"Sorry…not really. Anyways, I have to go now unfortunately. I still have another meeting to attend this afternoon. I love you!"

"I love you too!"

"All you have to do is reattach the piece that is near your ear to the rest of the device once we stop speaking, okay?"

"Okay. See you soon?"

"Yep. I'll see you soon, darling. Bye"

"Bye…."

Suki places the base of the device back on the desk that it was originally on before reattaching the cup-like object.

She blinks a couple of times, trying to fully process what had just occurred. Sokka had pretty much just made a huge leap in innovation solely for the purpose of talking to her. She felt a little giddy knowing that her fiancée missed her that much and was even more giddy knowing that he would be visiting soon.

"I miss you too, my sexy Southern wolf!"

Suki turns around to see her warriors giggling at her and Jia mocking her by repeating the pet name she'd given to Sokka. Meanwhile, Sun pretended to swoon beside Jia, making the other warriors laugh harder.

"Hy-po-crite!" Ai teases.

"Shut up," Suki demands, blushing furiously.

* * *

**In case you couldn't tell, the invention is a telephone! I just sort of described the one that is in TLoK because who knows if those telephones have stayed the same or changed from when the original Gaang was all together.**  
**Just fair warning, the next chapter I am planning on doing will be sad again. I wanted to separate the sad stories with a happy story so I wrote this first rather than the next one I'm planning to post. The next chapter will sort of tie in with the previous chapter ("Nightmares").**  
**Like always feel free to leave reviews and such.**


	8. Falling-Out

It's been a week since he last saw her. They were just sitting on the couch in Sokka's new apartment in the middle ring of Ba Sing Sae, talking one second and then suddenly arguing the next. He'd brought up the Boiling Rock again, asking her to tell him what happen for what must have been the tenth time since Suki had escaped from there with him. Usually, she would avidly avoid the topic, changing the subject completely or telling him to drop it. He would usually respect her wishes but it would bug him to no end. He, of course, couldn't just leave the subject alone, not when it was haunting her in her sleep.

* * *

"Suki, seriously. What happened when you were there?" Sokka asked.

"Sokka…," Suki whispered.

"Suki, come on. Please just tell me," Sokka pressed, ignoring her attempts to stop the conversation.

"Just drop it already…."

"Suki, even jus-"

"SOKKA!"

He stared at her wide-eyed when she suddenly yelled at him.

"What the hell? I'm just asking a question! There's no need to yell!"

"I told you to stop bring it up several times and you aren't listening!"

"I just want to know what happened! It's a simple question!"

"Maybe I'm not ready to tell you yet!"

"Why? Do you just not trust me?"

At that point Suki stood up out of annoyance and frustration.

"Sokka, this isn't about trust!"

"Then what is this about?"

"I just can't…."

"Can't what? I don't understand! Honestly, you never seem to tell me anything…."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know! What about that job you took last month?"

"Sokka, it's my job! I don't have time to tell you every detail!"

"I don't expect you to tell me everything, but when you know for a fact you're going somewhere extremely dangerous, I'd like to know those kind of things!"

Suki rolled her eyes, which annoyed Sokka even more.

"Sokka, what purpose is there behind you knowing? Do I look like some damsel in distress that needs you to save me when I'm in dangerous situations?"

"Considering I had to get you out of prison…," Sokka muttered.

"That's it! I'm done with this!" Suki stomped toward the door of Sokka's apartment. Sokka stood up soon after and rushed to the door.

"Where are you going all of a sudden?"

"I'm leaving, in case you couldn't tell!" Suki yelled, opening the door and stepping out.

"Suki! Seriously, stop being ridic-," Sokka started.

Suki slams the door in his face.

"Really?" Sokka muttered.

* * *

It took Sokka, a couple of days to realize he shouldn't have pushed so hard on the subject and the rest of the week to figure out where Suki even went. He'd asked people around the area if they had seen a girl with auburn hair, violet eyes, fair skin, and rather tall for a woman her age. Eventually, an older couple said that they had seen her earlier at the inn they were staying at in the middle ring; she'd gotten a room there for herself but had not brought any luggage or personal belongs other than a pouch of money, which they thought was strange. Sokka immediately took off to find this inn after getting directions from the elderly couple. Even when he got there, it took an hour to sweet talk the inn keeper-who was a sweet, old lady that cared about the privacy of her customers- into telling him which room Suki was in and to let him go find the room.

Once he was in front of the door, Sokka found that he unable to bring himself to knock. He admittedly felt guilty about pretty much trying to force Suki to talk about something she wasn't ready to discuss yet. He stands there for a few minutes trying to think about what he is going to say but ends up freaking himself out at the thought of making the situation between himself and Suki worse. He finds himself worrying that Suki will break up with him over this. The two of them had had plenty of arguments in the past but none of them ended with one of them leaving, let alone not seeing each other for a whole week. Trying to push his fears aside, Sokka takes a deep breath in before finally knocking on the door, finally deciding to just go for it. No one answers.

"S-s-suki. It's me…," Sokka stutters nervously.

No one answers still.

"I know you're in there. The inn keeper said so…," Sokka says.

Still no response.

"Suki…can you just listen to me for a second since you aren't going to say anything to me?" Sokka asks, "I really screwed up. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed it since you didn't want to talk about it….It's just…this seems to bother you a lot and I'm worried. I just feel a bit useless since you keep suffering through what happened and you're not letting anyone else help you. I just want you to feel better…I want you not to have so many nightmares…I want you to trust that will not react badly to whatever you tell me…." Sokka stops his rambling, when the door suddenly opens a little.

"Let me in please…." Sokka requests.

Suki finally opens the door all the way. Sokka frowns a little bit because she refuses to look him directly. She turns back around and sits down on the single bed in the room. Sokka follows her inside and sits beside her.

"I'm sorry," Sokka repeats.

"No…it's my fault…I started yelling…and honestly this could have been handled another way…" Suki starts, her voice cracking a little bit.

"Can you look at me for a second, darling?" Sokka asks gently.

Suki hesitates but eventually does as Sokka asks. Even then she doesn't let herself look at him directly, choosing to focus on anything but his eyes. Sokka frowns when he notices the trails left by tears rolling down her face. Sokka wipes her face tenderly, admittedly feeling guilty for making her cry.

"Can you at least tell me why you won't tell me, other than just not being able to….?" Sokka asks.

"Because I don't want you to think I'm weak…." Suki whispers. Sokka is taken aback by her answer.

"Why would I think you are weak?"

"You always treat me like I need to be looked after and saved…I'd pretty much just be giving you another reason to treat me like that…."

"You're an amazing warrior, Suki. And a brave woman too. I just can't help but treat you that way because I don't want to see anyone else get hurt. I don't want to lose anyone else I care about. I promise I won't think of you any differently. It's just easy to tell that this subject bothers you and I just don't want you worrying about what happened all by your-" Sokka stops speaking when his girlfriend suddenly presses her lips against his.

"You talk too much…," She says softly, giving him a sad smile once she stops kissing him, "Thank you for worrying so much…it's just, I'm so used to having to just put up with everything and not letting it get to me…. I just don't know how to even begin to talk about this..." Suki's voice cracks again as fresh tears start streaming down her face. She covers her face with her hands, hoping Sokka doesn't see.

"Suki…." Sokka gently moves her hands away from her face and pulls her closer to him. Suki lets her head rest on his shoulder.

"You said you wouldn't think of me any differently, right?" She asks, her voice barely above a whisper. Sokka nods his head.

Suki blinks a couple of times, unsure of what exactly to say or where to begin.

"…The guards used to always come in my cell and beat me up…," Suki begins, "The first time was the worse because I didn't want to put up with the way they were trying to treat me, but I just ended up getting my ass kicked. There were five guards in my cell at the same time so it was kind of difficult to fight them off. I made the situation even worse because I couldn't keep my mouth shut…."

Sokka remains quiet, rubbing her shoulder gently to coax her into continuing.

"…After a while, I just sort of gave up on completely fighting back. I would just block some of the attacks but not dodge or counter their attacks because it would just piss them off…." Suki continues, "Then one night three guards came in my cell. It started out like usual, with them just hitting me…but then…," Suki stops.

Sokka looks at her, wondering why she'd stop.

"…T-then…then…," Suki was having a hard time admitting what had happened next. She'd been annoyed with herself after the situation was over.

"I'm supposed to be a warrior and protect others but I couldn't even protect myself…," Suki mumbles.

"Suki…please…."

"…I was raped…."

Sokka goes silent again and balls his hands up into fists out of anger; Suki remains silent as well, trying not to cry again or look Sokka in the eye. After a while, the silence becomes suffocating to Suki, so she tries to get up. Sokka immediately pulls her back down on to the bed and into a hug. Neither one of them speak, just continue to hug. Sokka is the first to pull away. Suki still won't look at him directly.

"Can you look at me for a second, darling?" Sokka asks for the second time that day. Again, Suki doesn't at first. She sighs softly, before finally allowing herself to look at Sokka directly in the eyes. Sokka kisses her lips gently.

"Sokka…."

"Thank you for telling me."

Suki smiles at him weakly.

"I'm sorry…for not telling you until now."

"Don't apologize. I can understand why you didn't want to. It must have been hard dealing with that by yourself."

"Are you mad?"

"At you? No. At those damned guards? Yes. Spirits if-" Sokka clinches his fists together again. Suki covers his hands with hers, quietly telling him to calm down and that there isn't anything they can do about it at this point. Silence fills the room again.

"Let's go eat something!" Suki says after standing up suddenly, trying to break the depressing mood she'd created. Sokka is a little taken aback by her sudden change in mood but realizes quickly that she is trying to move on from the subject they had been discussing.

"Okay. Want to go to that noodle shop you like?" Sokka asks, also standing up. Suki smiles for real for the first time since they'd argued.

"Can we?"

"Of course. Anything you want, darling." Sokka he tells her, grabbing a hold of her hand and leading her out of the inn room.

* * *

**So yeah. They had to have had a huge fight at some point so I figured Suki's time at the Boiling Rock would possibly be one possible reason for them to argue so badly. I promise that I will write something happier for the next chapter! Like always let me know if there are any major errors and feel free to leave some reviews!**


	9. Home

Before they even got married, Suki and Sokka had agreed to live on Kyoshi Island. Suki would continue her career as a Kyoshi Warrior and Sokka would find work somewhere on the island as well as attend important meetings when asked to by Zuko and Aang. Their home on the island was rather humble, with only enough space for the two of them. They figured that they would look into getting a bigger house when they finally felt like starting a family.

They ultimately didn't need to go looking for a bigger house on Kyoshi island. By the time they even really started talking about the possibility of having kids, Sokka was asked to move to Republic City to both help in building the new city and to become the representative for the Southern Water Tribe for the Council that would be governing the city. Sokka wanted to make sure Suki was absolutely okay with the idea of leaving Kyoshi Island-since them moving meant that Suki would have to retire as a Kyoshi Warrior-before he took the job. He couldn't help but smile when his wife of five years told him, "Sokka, this is an amazing opportunity for you; it's a new adventure so you might as well just go for it. I'll be fine. I'll find something to do once we get there. So there's no need to worry."

* * *

Everything was fine when they got there. They were originally provided a house near the heart of the city as a gift of gratitude for Sokka becoming a councilman but the house was extremely spacious and way too luxurious for the couple's taste. After a few months, they decided to move to a smaller house in the suburbs near Republic City.

Sokka adapted quickly to his new lifestyle in Republic City. By the age of 27, Sokka was quite used to going to meetings, putting in his input, and barely managing to stay awake. He would return home in the evening, immediately greeted by his wife with kisses and dinner.

Suki, not having much to do, usually turned to cleaning the house and exploring Republic City while she waited for Sokka to return. She even tried seeing if any of the new residents of Republic City needed any help moving in or setting up their businesses but no one seemed to need her assistance. Sometimes she would practice the skills she had learned as a Kyoshi Warrior but, with nothing to use her skills for, training felt rather pointless to her. Eventually, even roaming the city began to lose Suki's interest and she found herself falling into a depression.

Sokka took notice rather quickly, especially because she wouldn't talk much, would sleep a lot more than usual, wouldn't eat much, and her complexion grew paler. Eventually Sokka took to trying to find something Suki could do in the City for work, hoping that it would cheer her up.

One day, after another dead end in finding Suki a job, Suki suddenly told Sokka, "I want to have a child…." Of course, Sokka's natural response at that second was to almost choke on the tea that Suki had given him the moment he'd stepped into the house after work. He was surprised, not so much by the request itself, but by the suddenness of the request. They hadn't talked about having kids since they had gotten to Republic City so Sokka couldn't help but wonder when Suki had been thinking about the idea.

"You really want to start having kids?" Sokka questions, wanting to make sure she knew the weight of the request she had just made. Sokka pulled Suki closer to him, since she had chosen to sit on the other end of the couch rather than right beside him.

"Yeah…d-do you not want to?" Suki asks, her voice stuttering out of worry.

"No. No. I want to. You just suddenly brought it up again that's all. You caught me off guard…."

"Oh sorry. But, what do you think? Can we try?"

Sokka smiles.

"I don't see why not. But I do have one question…."

"Hmmm?"

"Are you doing alright? You haven't really been acting like yourself…."

"I'll be fine. I just…don't know what to do with myself. I feel useless and out-of-place here. I guess that's why I wanted to start having kids…."

Sokka frowns a little.

"I've been asking around to see if anyone had any job openings but they all are either not available right now since everyone is still trying to set up since they just got to the city or they had jobs I knew you wouldn't enjoy even slightly," Sokka confesses her.

Suki smiles weakly, looking away from her husband.

"Thank you for looking around. Seriously, I'll be fine. Just focus on doing an amazing job at work. Okay?"

Sokka remains silent, unsure of how to respond to his wife's statement. He couldn't help but think about how much of a sacrifice she had made to move here with him; she gave up what she was most passionate about just to stay by his side and support him. Sokka pulls Suki closer to him.

"Kids, huh?" Sokka muses before tenderly nibbling on his wife's neck, desperately wanting to fulfill his wife's wish.

* * *

Sokka found himself smiling ear to ear. He had finally managed to find Suki a job she would enjoy. He rushed home and enthusiastically greeting his wife, who had been doing a little bit better since the couple had decided to try starting a family but was still not one hundred percent herself.

"I have good news!" Sokka announces, while the two of them ate dinner.

"What?" Suki asks.

"I found you a job you might like."

"…Really?"

"Yep. Toph is going to be establishing a police department for Republic City and wants someone who can help her both with setting up the actual department and with training officers. Actually, she personally asked if you were bus-."

Sokka is cut off by his wife suddenly kissing him. When they finally break apart for air, Suki is absolutely beaming. He can't help but grin at how much better his wife already seemed to be feeling.

"I'll tell Toph that you're up for the job and find out when you can start," he says.

* * *

Time passed. Suki helped Toph establish the Metalbending Police Department. Toph had Suki help with deciding on uniforms and what equipment officers should probably carry around. Toph also established a training academy for the Police Department and had Suki help out there, with the idea that knowing other forms of fighting-such as hand to hand combat and other weaponry skills-will help out officers in the long run. Three months after both the Police Department and training academy were up and running, Suki found out she was pregnant so she and Sokka moved again to a bigger house in the suburbs in order to get ready to welcome their first child into the world.

Both Suki and Sokka found that this new house felt more like home than anywhere else they had stayed previously. With four children and a goat dog running around, that house honestly couldn't feel like anything but a home, abet a well-used one.

* * *

Suki couldn't help but feel a bit sad parting from the home in which she and her husband had raised their four children-Yue, Hakota, Kyoshi, and Hiroyuki- but it was time to go on a new adventure. Sokka was going to take over as Chief of the Southern Water Tribe and as his wife, Suki was more than happy to join him in his new adventure. Sokka, just like before, had asked if Suki was really okay with moving again and Suki had responded in a way that reminded Sokka of when they were planning to be moving to Republic City, "Sokka, don't let a chance like this pass you by. I'll be fine. I'm getting old so its not like I need much to do. I'm staying by your side either way you can't get rid of me that easily." Sokka just chuckled, wondering what made his wife think that he would want to get rid of her.

At first, Sokka continued to worry about how Suki would adapt to living in the Southern Water Tribe. He wasn't so worried about her being cold or not taking well to the cuisine in his village but he was worried about her becoming depressed with nothing to do there. At the age of 50, Suki wasn't too worried about having to find something to do. She was quite happy just talking with other villagers and spending time with some of the younger kids in the village, much to Sokka's happiness. Sure their home in the Southern Water Tribe didn't feel as homey as the house they raised their kids in, but it was still their home. To be honest, anywhere they were together was home, it never really mattered where they stayed or what kind of house they stayed in.


	10. Late

"Sokka, we need to leave now!" Suki yells, impatiently.

Zuko and Mai just got married earlier that morning and were having a giant reception that would start in thirty minutes. Considering that Sokka and Suki had opted to stay in a luxurious inn-which was provided courtesy of the newly married couple- that was not particularly close to the Fire Nation capital rather than stay in the palace (since many of the wedding guests would be staying there), they had to leave soon if they wanted to get to the reception on time. Suki was currently waiting in the foyer of their inn room, hoping Sokka would hurry.

Sokka sighs, not particularly happy about being rushed. He needed to make sure his outfit looked great on him first before he could leave. He had gone through multiple ensembles trying to figure out which one he wanted to wear to the reception and had refused to wear the same things that he had worn to the wedding ceremony. He had also made Suki change into another outfit as well despite the Kyoshi Warrior's stubbornness on trying to wear the same attire she'd wore earlier that morning.

"Does this outfit look fine?" Sokka asks Suki as he stands in front of the mirror in the bedroom of their inn room for the thirtieth time that hour.

"Sokka, you look fine. Let's go already!" Suki shouts.

"You didn't even come look…," Sokka mutters, "Wait! Did you change? You're not wearing the same dress you had on earlier, right?"

"Did I look that horrible in the dress that I can't wear it again?" Suki asks.

Sokka walks out of the bedroom into the foyer.

"That's not what I'm saying. I was just thinking its boring to just wear the same-," Sokka stops talking when he finally sees how his girlfriend looks.

She looked gorgeous. She had chosen to wear a long, red, gold, and black strapless dress with a slit on one side of the dress coming up to the middle of her thigh and some cleavage showing. She had also painted her lips red, lined the edge of her eyelids with black paint, and pinned her hair up into a bun using a golden flower-shaped hair pin. To top it all off, Suki donned various matching accessories including the lacy red, black and gold fan she was currently using to fan herself.

"What…? Do I look ridiculous?" Suki asks shyly, hiding her blushing face behind the fan she was using when she notices her boyfriend staring at her.

"D-d-definitely not! You look great! You're going to end up outshining the bride looking like that," Sokka retorts, finding himself thinking about other activities he could be doing right then and there rather than going to the Fire Lord and Lady's reception.

"Considering Mai gave me the dress, after you made a scene about not wanting me to wear the same clothing to both the ceremony and the reception, she either wants me to or is wearing something even more flamboyant…the latter of which I cannot see happening. Anyways, we really need to go or we are going to be late. I really don't want them mentioning how we are always late to every-," Suki stops speaking when Sokka suddenly kisses her. Despite being in a rush, Suki wraps her arms around Sokka's neck as he pulls her closer to him.

Sokka pulls away first and gives Suki a look she recognizes all too well.

"We're going to be late…. There will be more than enough time to do that later but seriously we…," Suki's voice trails off as Sokka's hands begin to wonder all over her body. Sokka pulls Suki into another kiss before asking her, "Please?"

Suki sighs, feeling her will-power to get to the reception on time waning quickly.

"Fine. Five minutes is all I'm giving you. Don't mess up my-" Sokka silences her again with a kiss, as his hands slowly begin to pull her dress up.

* * *

"That was way longer than five minutes…." Suki tells Sokka, as she hurriedly tries to get her dress back on correctly.

"Sorry, couldn't help it." Sokka responds, as he hurriedly tries to fix his own outfit.

Despite her desire to not be late, Suki can't help but smile softly at her boyfriend's spontaneity.

"I guess I have to work on my self-control," Sokka says with a laugh.

"And I obviously need to work on say 'no'," Suki adds before walking towards the door of their inn room. "Ready?"

"Yeah," Sokka responds, heading towards the door as well.

"We're definitely late."

"They'll know why as soon as they see you in that dress," Sokka says, a smirk appearing on his face.

Suki blushes, hitting her boyfriend softly with the fan that was once again opened in order to hide her reddening cheeks. Sokka opens up the door and allows Suki to walk out first.

"After you, milady," he states, trying to act suave as usual. His actions are met with giggles from his girlfriend as she walks out the door."

"Come on, smooth talker. We have to at least show up to the reception. Then we can have more fun when we get back."

Sokka grins at Suki, musing over how great his taste in women were.

* * *

**Sorry that this one is a bit short, but I hope you still enjoyed it. I'm a bit worried about if this is still a "T" rating. I'm just going to assume it is! **

**XD**

**Leave comments and such if you want~**


	11. Bail

Toph sighs.

"How long do you think it will take Fans to get here?" Toph asked Sokka.

"I don't know. She had work today so it might be another hour or so before she gets here," Sokka replied.

Toph and Sokka were lounging on the floor of a wooden jail cell in a Fire Nation village. They had been swindling people out of their money for the fifth time that month and were now in a jail cell for the fifth time. They didn't have any actual need for the money and but it was fun coming up with ways to trick people and actually see if they worked. Obviously not all of them worked, because the local police would catch them and throw them in a jail cell. Usually, Toph wouldn't be captured so easily while Sokka would be the first taken back to the village jail, but she had been too busy laughing her ass off at the last trick they played that she didn't have time to get away from the police officers.

"This is sooooo boring," Toph huffs, blowing her bangs away from her face in the process.

"I could tell jokes!" Sokka exclaims.

"Fine. Anything's better than sitting here with nothing to do. Go for it," Toph states.

"Knock, Knock."

"Who's there?"

"Burglar."

"Burglar, who?"

Sokka starts chuckling before he even gets to the point of the joke.

"What the hell is so funny?" Toph asks, annoyed that he hadn't finished his damned joke yet.

"Burglars don't knock, silly," Sokka states after he had stopped chuckling.

Toph punches his arm, hard.

"Ow, what the hell? I know you love me and all but geez," Sokka complains as he rubs the spot Toph hit.

"That wasn't an affectionate punch. It was a 'that was lame' punch." Toph huffs.

"You need to differentiate your punches 'cause they all feel the same to me and my joke wasn't that bad," Sokka says.

"Can't you think of something better or something else to do?" Toph asks.

"Ummmm…we can play a game?" Sokka suggests.

"Like?"

"Earth, Water, Air, Fire."

"That's going to get boring so quickly. If we do that we need to spice it up a bit."

"What? Isn't flicking the loser's forehead enough?"

"No. How about we punch each other!"

"I don't think that's a good idea and I feel like I would end up with way more bruises than I want."

"Oh, come on! It won't be that bad. I can hold back a bit."

"But I'm not going to punch you…"

"Why because I'm blind, a kid, or a girl? Don't make me get Fans on you again!"

"…I'd just rather do flicks."

"You totally don't want to do it 'cause I'm a girl. I swear as soon as Suki gets here I'll-"

"You'll what?" Sokka and Toph both turn their heads in the direction of a familiar voice.

"Suki!" Sokka exclaims, jumping up from his spot on the jail cell floor and rushing over to the cell bars to greet his girlfriend, "We can get bailed out now!"

"I won't be bored anymore! Anyways, Suki you need to punish your damned boyfriend he didn't want-" Toph begins but her voice becomes muffled when Sokka runs over and covers her mouth with his hand. Her automatic response is to bite his hand, which definitely gets him to stop.

Suki sighs.

"What's wrong?" Sokka asks.

"They won't let me bail you two out…."

"WHAT!" Sokka and Toph yell in unison, "WHY?"

"Because each time I bail you two out, you end up back in here again within a matter of days. They figured it would be better to send for Katara instead so that she could scold you two since you actually stay out of trouble after she comes to get you…."

"…We're screwed…"Sokka mutters, sitting back down beside Toph again.

"Why can't you just scold us?" Toph asks.

"Considering I usually end up on the same side of the jail cell with you two on a normal basis, I don't think I can scold you two well enough to the officers' liking," Suki responds.

Toph and Sokka chuckle, knowing that if Suki hadn't had work for the past month she would have joined in on the fun and made all of the tricks a lot more interesting.

"How long do you think it will take for her to get here?" Sokka asks.

"Probably not that long considering, we were at the same meeting earlier before I left. I didn't tell her why I was leaving because I was hoping the officers would let me get you two out but…," Suki glances over at the guards, "they had other plans."

"What was the point of even messaging you if you couldn't even bail us out?" Toph asks.

"So that you two would hopefully calm down and stop yelling and complaining in there!" One of the guards responded, having been listening in on the threesome's conversation.

Sokka wraps his arm around Toph's shoulder and suddenly grins at Toph. Toph grins back before the two of them begin loudly wailing about their boredom, hunger, anything else that felt right to complain about at that time. The officers roll their eyes at the two troublemakers' childishness.

"Well, they just love you two," Suki sarcastically states after the Water Tribe boy and Master Earthbender finished their yelling.

"Yep, they even gave us this amazing wooden cell instead of the damned metal one that is right beside us," Toph responds, matching Suki's sarcastic tone.

"Probably because you two crazy children would escape within a matter of minutes…," a voice retorts coldly. Sokka swallows hard, knowing who that voice belonged to.

"Hello, Kat," Suki states.

"Hey, sis," Sokka greets, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily.

"Sweetness, could you hurry up and bail us out," Toph says.

"I should just let you two idiots stay in there until you actually learn your lesson," Katara says glaring at the two that were in the jail cell. Sokka looks down sheepishly while Toph blows her bangs out of her face impatiently and without any knowledge of the fact that Katara was currently glaring at her and her partner-in-crime. Katara walks away for a second before returning with one of the officers.

"Thank the Spirits. They're getting ready to leave," one of the other guards says loud enough for Toph and Sokka to hear them.

"We love you too!" Toph and Sokka yell sarcastically.

The officer unlocks the jail cell before saying: "If we catch you guys stirring up trouble again you'll be sent somewhere way worse than this place." The guard walks away, unable to hear Toph and Sokka's nonchalant response of, "Uh-huh."

* * *

Katara, Suki, Sokka, and Toph were on their way back to the house they were staying in during their time in the Fire Nation. Sokka and Toph hadn't been scolded yet but knew better than to think it wouldn't happen. Katara suddenly stops in the middle of the road, making the other three stop as well. She turns around before hitting Toph and Sokka on their heads, hard enough to get a point across but soft enough to not hurt…much.

"Really you two? This has been going on for a month now? What the hell is so worth you two getting into trouble that many times?" Katara scolds.

"They were just having some fun, Kat. No one got hurt," Suki tries to intervene.

"And you! Don't think you aren't in any trouble either! I know you're the one that was bailing them out the past four times!" Katara chides.

Suki looks at the ground sheepishly.

"I can't believe you guys!Sokka, you're a freaking diplomat for the Southern Water Tribe, you shouldn't be acting out like this. It's going to make dad and the rest of the Southern Water Tribe look bad. And Toph, you're supposed to be a metal bending teacher! Who is going to send their kids to your school if they find out the teacher is troublemaker who swindles people out of their money!" Katara continues.

Sokka rubs the back of his neck again while Toph crosses her arms in front of her, rolls her eyes, and blows her bangs out of the way.

Katara sighs again before asking, "You two didn't get hurt, right? I guess that's all that really matters." Katara continues walking. Sokka and Suki exchange glances, surprised that they didn't get scolded more. Toph catches up with Katara and starts talking about the awesome tricks she and Sokka played to get money out of people. Katara shakes her head disapprovingly but smiles at how happy Toph seems to be. Sokka and Suki slow down a bit letting the distance between them and the two younger girls get farther apart.

"How was your day, beautiful?" Sokka asks, wrapping his one of his arms around Suki's shoulder. Suki smiles in response.

"The exact opposite of yours apparently, boring."

"There's still some sunlight out, I bet we can find you something fun to do before the day ends." Sokka states before stopping in the middle of the road and pulling Suki into a hug. He presses his forehead against hers before bringing his lips close to hers.

"Oh yeah? And what do you have in mind?" Suki asks softly. Sokka smiles before attempting to press his lips against Suki's. Unfortunately for him, Toph decides at that moment she doesn't want to deal with the "oogies" the couple was making her have and earthbends Sokka into a nearby fountain.

"TOPH!" Sokka yells. Toph chuckles heartily, continuing to walk away with Katara.

"Are you going to get up or do I need to bail you out of this situation too?" Suki asks jokingly, laughing at the annoyed look on her lover's face.

"Not funny. You're going to regret laughing at me," Sokka frowns, standing up and getting out of the fountain before trying to catch Suki and give her a hug while he was still in his wet clothes.

* * *

**So yeah. The jokes isn't mine. I found it on the internet and it seemed Sokka worthy. The game Earth, Water, Air, Fire is what Sokka and Aang were playing in the "City of Walls and Secrets". I hope you enjoyed this! It's not extremely Sukka centric but I think it came out pretty well.**


	12. Speech

Sokka was honestly having a hard time calming down. In just a few short minutes, he would have to walk up to the podium set up in the middle of the Council Hall of Republic City and give a speech to the citizens of the area. He had been working with Suki and Katara for weeks trying to come up with the perfect speech but even with knowing that his speech was perfectly prepared, he felt nervous. Suki had him practice his speech multiple times over the days leading up to now in hopes of Sokka becoming more comfortable but nothing was particularly working. The Water tribesmen was currently panicking in one of the rooms just outside of the main council hall.

"Councilman Sokka."

Sokka doesn't hear his name being called at first due to focusing on how queasy he felt at the moment.

"Councilman Sokka!" one of the council secretaries, Daiyu, yells. Sokka jumps, forgetting where he is. "Are you okay? You don't look so good…."

"I'll be f-fine. Just a l-little nervous. Public s-speaking isn't exactly my s-strong suit," he replies, his voice giving away the fact that he was more than a little nervous.

"Should I go get you some water or something?"

"Yeah, that would be nice."

Daiyu walks away, going to retrieve some water for the Water Tribesmen. She returns within two minutes with water and some snacks.

"I figured some snacks would help too," Daiyu says handing Sokka the water and some seal jerky.

"Thanks, what would I do without you."

"Who knows? Anyways, as much as I hate to tell you this, you have about three minutes before they  
welcome you to the podium."

Sokka's heart starts to beat faster.

"Do you want a copy of your speech with you on stage or do you think you will be fine without it?" Daiyu asks, rummaging through a bag on her shoulder.

"I'll take a copy up there just in case…."

Daiyu finds one of the scrolls with a copy of Sokka's speech in her bag and hands it over time. She looks at him, noticing that his condition has gotten worse since the minutes have been ticking down to his speech.

"Take a deep breath," she instructs. Sokka does as he is told immediately.

"We would now like to welcome to the podium, Councilman Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe,"

"It's time. You've got this. Just breathe. If you forget what you're going to say look at the copy of speech. Okay?" Daiyu tells him. Sokka nods before slowly walking out of the room and out to the podium. Due to his nerves getting to him, he accidently drops the scroll with the copy of his speech. At first, he finds himself caught off guard by the scroll falling and is only able to awkwardly smile at the crowd that filled the seats of the main council hall. He continues to make his way up to the podium, deciding that retrieving the scroll wasn't worth it. Once he gets there, he tries to adjust the microphone on the podium, causing it to screech loudly a couple of times and causing the crowd and himself to wince. When he finally gets the microphone the way he wants it, he stands behind the podium and takes another deep breath.

"Good e-evening everyone," He begins, his nervousness making him stutter a bit.

"I was asked to…speak with you all…about," he continues. He finds himself looking all around the council hall at the many people that were currently staring at him, causing himself to get even more nervous-if that was even possible at this point.

At that moment, some late comers walk in from the east entrance of the council hall, including Chief Beifong and his wife of six years, Suki.

"SUKI!" He finds himself yelling before he can stop himself. Suki's attention, that was on Toph as the police chief spoke to her, immediately fell on her husband. Suki gave Sokka a look that he could only read as, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Sorry…," He whsipers, though of course the microphone picked up his words, so everyone heard him.

"Umm…I will be talking about some of the…new…projects that will be starting…in the city soon…and how this will affect…," Sokka continues, his nervousness still causing him to struggle with his words.

Suki frowns softly, a bit worried about Sokka and his anxiousness over publicly speaking. She walks towards the back of the middle section within the council hall before waving her arms above her head trying to get her husband's attention. Sokka notices her right away and gives her a pained look. She points at herself and mouths, "just look at me." Sokka closes his eyes and takes another deep breath. Upon opening his eyes, he only lets his attention stay on Suki and continues his speech.

* * *

"See, I knew you could do it," Daiyu tells Sokka when he returns from the main council hall. She hands him more water before asking, "But what was with calling your wife's name all of a sudden and who were you staring at the whole time?"

Sokka can't help but chuckle loudly.

"I didn't mean to say her name out loud. I just noticed her when she walked in and found myself calling her name all of a sudden. I was staring at her the whole time because I felt less nervous when I just focused on her," the councilman replied.

"I'm glad you got through the speech but she can't always be there to calm you down. If anything, she just happened to come by today," Daiyu says sternly.

It was true. He had been lucky that Suki had come by. There were always police officers here to protect the councilmen but Toph hadn't made any announcement about personally attending this congressional meeting and Suki works in the police academy so she isn't someone who would need to attend these meetings. Toph must have brought her along but only the spirits know why Toph came herself. Anyways, Sokka was just thankful that Suki had been there because there was no way that speech would have been completed as smoothly as it had been if his wife hadn't been there to calm him down.

"I'll make sure to fit in practicing speeches to your busy schedule," Daiyu tells Sokka. Sokka frowns slightly, he needed to get used to giving public speeches considering what his job as a councilmen entailed.

"Yeah, please do," Sokka approves.

* * *

Once the meeting is adjourned, Sokka runs out to greet his wife. He pulls her into a hug and peppers her with kisses, gaining way more attention from the crowd of people who were trying leave the council hall than his wife really wanted. Suki pushes him away gently, the blush on her face letting him know that she pushed him away out of embarrassment over all of the attention he was giving her rather than out of dislike. Toph walks over to the couple and Sokka greets her with a hug as well, much to Toph's annoyance.

"Honestly, what would you do without me, Meathead?" Toph asks playfully, once she pries Sokka off of her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sokka questions.

"I'm the one that went and got Suki. I figured you would be tripping all over your words unless she was here," Toph reveals.

Sokka pulls Suki into a hug again before quickly capturing her lips. Toph rolls her eyes at the two, deciding to at least give them a second before earth bending Sokka somewhere else for giving her the "oogies". When they don't break away from one another, Toph gets ready to earth bend Sokka but is stopped by Daiyu. Toph glares at her at first but softens her expression when Daiyu apologizes quietly, turns towards the couple, and says, "As much as everyone in this council room is enjoying this scene, this is- despite what you may believe- a council room and a place of business not your house or a place of intimacies such as what you're currently showcasing."

Sokka and Suki break apart immediately, Suki fans herself with both of her hands, in an attempt to calm her cheeks that were slowly becoming redder.

"Sorry," Sokka apologizes sheepily.

"Anyways, Chief Suki, I have told Councilman Sokka that I will be putting practicing speeches into his schedule but I'm not exactly qualified to help him in that area. Please practice with him on this so that his speeches won't be as painful to watch as they were today," Daiyu walks away, going to check on some of the other councilmen that were currently present.

"Was I that bad…?" Sokka asks Toph and Suki.

"Well…," Suki begins.

"You sucked," Toph says bluntly. Sokka winces.

"Don't worry. We'll work on it," Suki tells him gently. She grabs his hands and squeezes them reassuringly. "But for today, let's celebrate you at least getting through the speech!"

"Yeah, you didn't faint this time," Toph agrees.

"I thought we were never going to speak of that again!" Sokka exclaims.

"It's a bit difficult to not talk about stuff that makes the headlines of the Republic City news," Toph replies.

"You can't even read. How do you know what was in the headlines?" Sokka mutters.

"Don't get hit," Toph warns. Sokka sighs and turns towards his wife.

"Can we go to that restaurant that serves all-you-can-eat meats?" He asks. The restaurant Sokka spoke of was, in and of itself, rather normal but offered a meat buffet for a rather pricey amount. Suki had taken Sokka out to the restaurant to eat there once for his birthday and Sokka had fallen in love with the place immediately. He always asked to go there whenever the couple chose to go out and celebrate.

"Sure, darling. I think you've earned it," Suki replies.

"I wanna go too…but I have to go back to work unfortunately," Toph sighs.

"I'll eat enough meat for the both of us then!" Sokka retorts.

"You already eat enough meat for a whole village, I doubt you'll have trouble eating for two. Speaking of eating for two, seems like Suki will be too," Toph says.

"What?" Suki asks, confused about what Toph was saying.

"You'll find out soon," Toph states, dismissing the question altogether before leaving to return to her office.

Sokka and Suki exchange confused looks before shrugging their shoulders and leaving the council hall. If Toph says they'll figure it out soon, they'll just have to wait and see what she was talking about.

* * *

**So yeah. Thought I'd talk about Sokka's fear of public speaking a bit. So, the last bit about Suki eating for two will be discussed in an upcoming chapter. Not the next one but probably the one after next...if that makes sense. **

**I hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment if you would like~**


	13. Argument

**Sorry that this took so long! Enjoy!**

* * *

Katara wakes up earlier than usual so that she can get to the market quickly and surprise Toph with her favorite foods for lunch. She would cook Toph breakfast, but the master earthbender rarely woke up early enough to eat that meal The market that sold all of the ingredients she needed was about an hour away on foot and would be open by the time she got there.

Toph would be turning fifteen this year and all the Gaang members would be in Gaoling for the day. Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Suki arrived a week in advanced to start figuring out what all Toph wanted to do for her birthday. She pretty much just wanted to have a little party at the house Aang and Katara rented in Gaoling and then go out to eat at one of the restaurants in town. Zuko, Mai, and Tylee would be arriving around lunch time to celebrate with everyone else.

Katara runs out to the market to get the ingredients she needs and returns to the house so that she can start cooking. She debates over whether to wake Suki up and make the Kyoshi Warrior help her cook but she finds herself deciding not to after remembering that Suki isn't particularly the nicest person in the world when people wake her up; Kat would just have to hope Suki would wake up sooner or later. Katara didn't have to wait long for Suki to wake up but she definitely wasn't expecting Suki to wake up yelling at her brother so early in the morning. Kat just hoped the two of them would stop soon and not wake up Toph or Aang. Unfortunately, her wish was not granted.

Suki comes into the kitchen, an annoyed expression plastered on her face. Kat wonders if she should ask about what was happening but she decides that she should just stay out of the older couple's business.

"I swear your brother is a pain in my ass sometimes," Suki mutters.

"You're just figuring that out?" Katara asks, beginning to cut up some of her ingredients.

"Nah, I realized before, I'm just noticing it even more right now," Suki sighs.

"What are you two even-?" Kat begins to ask, but she is cut off by her brother.

"Why are you always walking away whenever we start arguing?" Sokka loudly asks his girlfriend as he walks into the room. Suki rolls her eyes, making Katara wonder how big of an argument the lovers were having. Usually Suki and Sokka would try to end their arguments within ten minutes of having one which both made Katara happy and annoyed. Happy because it meant they were usually not yelling at the top of their lungs for more than ten minutes and annoyed because their arguments tended to end with a heated make-out session or other intimate activities that Katara had no desire to hear.

"Maybe if you'd stopped speaking so obnoxiously and just apologize I wouldn't have a reason to walk away," Suki retorts. Sokka mimics her words, annoying Suki even more.

"What are you a child?" Suki questions. Sokka responds by sticking his tongue out.

"This is why I don't date younger men," Suki mutters before walking out of the kitchen. Sokka rolls his eyes. Kat could only stand still, in the middle of cutting up mangos, as she watched the argument between her brother and his girlfriend. The fact that Suki kept walking away was a sure sign that this argument was pretty bad and would last a lot longer than ten minutes.

"What's going on with you two?" Kat asks cautiously. She didn't particularly feel like being on the receiving end of his yelling. Sokka sighs and brings his hands up to his head in order to rub his temples.

"It's complicated…," Sokka mumbles.

"Well is it something serious?"

"I personally don't think it's that serious but Suki seems to think it is."

"Then talk to her-."

"I've already tried talking to her Kat. She just keeps walking away from the conversation."

"Just give it some time I guess…."

"I hope so…I'm going to go change. Do you need help cooking?"

"I'll be fine. Go change clothes." Sokka was still in his pajamas, he hadn't even managed to get changed before he and Suki started arguing.

Sokka nods his head in response and begins to walk out of the room. While he is walking through the kitchen door, Suki also tries to walk through causing the two to bump into each other. Suki glares at him, making him glare right back at her, despite his desire to make the situation better. Suki ignores his glare and walks over to Katara. Sokka rolls his eyes and continues to walk back to his room.

"Need help?" Suki asks sweetly.

"Uh…," Katara mumbles after witnessing the exchange of glares between the older couple, "yeah, that would be great."

* * *

"I'll be right back. I think Zuko, Tylee, and Mai just got here," Katara says as she walks out of the kitchen. Suki responds with an "okay" and continues setting up the plates for Toph's birthday lunch. Katara walks into the main hall of the house to greet the Fire Nation trio. Tylee runs off to find Toph's room, wanting to get the birthday girl ready for the day. Katara couldn't help but let her, despite knowing Toph would hate it, just because Katara didn't feel like dealing with trying to get Toph ready. That tasks was always rather tiresome.

Katara gets Zuko to help out with setting up a big enough table for everyone to sit around and eat lunch. She then sets out enough cushions for everyone to sit down on. She also makes Zuko, since he is the nephew of the greatest tea maker in history, brew some Toph's favorite tea for everyone. Mai sits herself down deciding to just enjoying the entertainment of her boyfriend being bossed around. She, of course, gets bored after a while and ends up going to help Suki, who is starting to transfer plates of food to the table that Zuko had set up. Aang and Sokka come out to help set up the table too. Katara finds herself having to tell Suki and Sokka to behave since it's Toph's birthday, after hearing the two of them arguing again. Once everything is set up, Katara runs to go bring Toph and Tylee to the table. When Toph gets to the table everyone shouts, "Happy Birthday!"

"Thanks you guys," Toph grins.

"I made your favorites," Katara tells Toph excitedly.

"You made roasted chicken and seaweed wraps?"

"Yep."

"Mangos and egg custard tart?"

"Yep."

"I never thought I'd say this out loud, but I love you Sweetness."

Katara and the rest of the Gaang can't help but laugh. Katara couldn't keep from smilling, seeing as how Toph seemed quite happy with the food that was prepared. Everyone dug into the food immediately. There was were some conversations being held, namely just talking about what all had happened since the last time everyone saw one another. Katara had purposefully made Suki and Sokka sit next to each other, in hopes that they would makeup sometime soon but she was mistaken. The two of them managed to get through the meal without arguing but another argument broke out while everyone was sitting and chatting after eating. Everyone, aside from the arguing couple, looked to Katara for answers but she could only shrug her shoulders in response.

"I can't believe you're acting like you don't know what you did. I swear you're an asshole sometimes," Suki mutters. Sokka frowns before saying something he really should have known not to say.

"I'm not acting, I'm being dead serious. I don't know what I did, so I'm not apologizing. Maybe if you stopped acting so bitchy I wouldn't be looking like an asshole," Sokka retorts. Everyone stays still knowing that Suki's about to lose her temper. Suki glares at Sokka before dumping the her cup of tea on top of his head and walking away from the table. Sokka sits there shocked along with everyone else at the table. Katara immediately waterbends the tea out off of him and goes to find Suki.

"What the hell was that?" Katara asks Suki once she finds the Kyoshi Warrior.

"He was pissing me off," Suki responds.

"That doesn't mean you pour tea on him," Katara chides. Suki sighs softly but crosses her arms and looks away from Katara. She wasn't planning on apologizing. Katara finds her own temper starting the flare a bit with the way Suki is acting.

"What's gotten into you two? It's Toph's birthday and here you two are making a scene," Katara starts.  
Suki rolls her eyes, making Katara even more annoyed. Katara ends up deciding to just walk away from the female warrior before she became angry too. Honestly, the two of them were stressing her out.

* * *

Over the next few of hours, the Gaang-minus Suki-plays games and chats with Toph, who seems to be enjoying the little get-together. After a while, Toph gets bored being cooped up inside of the house and asks if everyone wants to go hang out around town before going to dinner. Before leaving, Katara gets everyone to give Toph the presents that they brought for her. Everyone hands over their gifts except for Sokka, who has a guilty expression written all over his face. Katara pulls her brother aside to scold him for forgetting to get Toph a present.

"How could you forget to get your best friend a birthday present?" Katara chides.

"I-it just slipped my mind," Sokka retorts.

"Did Suki buy one then?"

"How the hell, I am supposed to know? I don't keep tabs on what that _woman_ does." Sokka frowns, thanks to Katara reminding him that he was currently arguing with his beloved girlfriend. Katara sighs softly.

"When we get into town go buy something, anything."

"Okay, sis. I got it."

Katara walks away, wondering what the hell could have possibly gotten into her brother and his girlfriend. She and the rest of the Gaang start to clean up the table so that everyone can go hang out in town.

"Aren't you going to open up your gifts, Toph? Tylee asks.

"Nah, I want everyone to see a certain of my presents before I open the rest of them," Toph states, chuckling loudly.

"Where is it then?" Tylee asks confused..

"Just wait until sunset and you will see," Toph responds before getting up from her cushion.

* * *

"Suki and Sokka go find a present for Toph, now," Katara commands. The two of them begin to protest but stop when they receive a glare from the younger woman. They reluctantly start walking towards some of the shops in town.

"I can't believe those two didn't get Toph a present," Aang tells Katara, "I would have thought they would have had their present was all planned out and would be extremely clever." Last year, the two of them had taken Toph to a shop that sold collectible and rare rocks and minerals, knowing that Toph would want to try earthbending almost everything in the store. They also figured that Toph would end up getting kicked out sooner or later but knew she would have fun while doing so. The metalbender ended up starting a fight with another earthbender that had visited the shop. She definitely seemed to have had way too much fun during that particular birthday but the shop keeper wasn't the slightest bit amused.

"Speaking of those two, what is even going on? They are usually the couple I don't see arguing that often," Tylee states.

"I don't know. I tried asking Sokka but all he told me is that it was complicated and that Suki isn't particularly working with him to try to fix the situation," Katara says.

Everyone continues walking around town, looking at the local shops, trying to kill time before dinner.

"The sun is going to be setting soon but those two aren't back yet," Zuko states.

"Maybe they made up and got 'distracted'," Mai suggests.

"I both hope and don't hope that is the case," Katara replies. Unfortunately, Sokka and Suki come back empty handed and were arguing yet again.

"I leave you alone for two seconds and you're already flirting with another woman," Suki states.

"I wasn't flirting. I was just talking to her. I can't talk to other women?" Sokka asks, his voice raising in volume the longer he speaks.

"I never said you couldn't speak to other woman. I just wish you wouldn't act like we aren't still dating."

"_If_ we are still dating, could you at least stop walking away from me every time I try to speak to you."

"I wouldn't feel the need to walk away. If you would just admit what you did wrong."

"WHAT THE HELL DID I DO WRONG?"

"WHY THE HELL WOULDN'T YOU KNOW AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU YELLING?"

"STOP IT, RIGHT NOW!" Katara yells, intervening in the heated argument. Sokka and Suki frown, cross the arms, and look away from each other.

"What the heck is going on with you two?" Aang asks.

"Honestly, this would be over if Sokka would just admit that what he did was wrong and apologize," Suki responds.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Sokka says.

"Didn't do anything wrong, my ass," Suki mutters.

"No need to be a bitch," Sokka mutters back. Suki glares at him and is about to hit him when Tylee suddenly says, "It's officially sunset. What was the present that you wanted to show everyone at sunset Toph?" Tylee finds herself hoping that the couple would stop arguing for now if she changed the subject. Toph grins and starts laughing. Sokka and Suki join her. Everyone else looks at the three of them in confusion.

"For my birthday gift from Suki and Sokka, I asked them to make everyone think they were having a really bad argument and make the get-together really awkward until the sun sets," Toph says in between chuckles, "They nailed it!"

Suki and Sokka continue laughing before starting to apologize to each other for the exchange of bad words and mean actions throughout the day.

"So you two aren't arguing?" Tylee asks, still confused.

"Nope," Suki and Sokka say in unison before smiling and kissing each other.

"I swear you two had me worried," Katara states, finding herself able to finally relax after the amount of stress she was having thanks to them two arguing during Toph's birthday celebration.

"I wasn't expecting them to argue until sunset. I figured one of you would burst out laughing sooner or later," Toph says.

Suki giggles, "I almost did after we finished eating lunch. That's why I poured the tea on Sokka and rushed out of the room."

"So that's why you poured tea on me. You caught me off guard and I was in on this whole prank," Sokka responds, chuckling as he recalls getting tea dumped on his head.

"Sorry. I tried to at least make sure it wasn't still hot first," Suki states apologetically. Sokka smiles before kissing her temple.

"So, are we going to eat or what? Fooling people makes me hungry," Sokka states.

"Everything makes you hungry, darling," Suki retorts.

"Yeah, dinner…," Aang mutters, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Sokka and Suki were pretending to argue this whole time.

Suki and Sokka chuckle at everyone still trying to fully take in the fact that they were perfectly fine before linking arms and walking towards the restaurant Toph had decided to have dinner at. Toph walks beside them, continuing to compliment them on how well they tricked everyone else.

* * *

Dinner is lively as usual. If anyone had still been confused over whether or not Suki and Sokka were okay, they definitely were not after dinner was over. The two of them were pretty much all over each other, trying to make up for all of the time the missed with each other earlier that day. The couple sat super close and would end up kissing or whispering in each other's ears every couple of minutes. Suki made everyone's "oogies" even worse by blowing on some of Sokka's food for him and feeding it to him. On top of that, they couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other, touching one another whenever they felt no one was looking. But, of course, Toph knew what they were doing and promptly got them stop.

"Didn't you two do enough of that when you were planning how you would trick everyone yesterday?" Toph asks, "The damned vibrations that came from your room tells me you did!"

Suki and Sokka blush, recalling how "distracted" they had gotten the night before. They really had to work on controlling themselves but it shouldn't be all that surprising that the couple wanted to engage in intimate activities the previous night since they would have to be arguing the following day.

"Anyways," Kat begins, trying to take the focus off of Suki, Sokka, and their personal activities, "did you have fun today Toph?"

"Yep!" Toph replies, roast duck still in her mouth. Katara begins to chide her for speaking with her mouth open but stops knowing that the now fifteen year old wouldn't listen.

Once everyone finishes eating, they pay for their meals and leave the restaurant. Zuko, Mai, and Tylee say their goodbyes. Suki would be returning to the Fire Nation as well but not within the next few days.

"So what are you going to do when we get back to that house?" Aang asks Toph.

"Open my presents!" Toph says excitedly. Aang and Katara smile at her excitement and continues talking to Toph about her plans for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, Sokka and Suki lag behind the other three so hoping for some alone time. After walking a bit longer, they stop completely.

"You did an amazing job today," Suki compliments Sokka.

"Well I am pretty amazing; it shouldn't be that much of a surprise," Sokka retorts confidently, making Suki swat at him but smile none-the-less.

"So," Sokka begins, a smirk starting to appear on his face, "since we just 'argued' does that mean we get to have makeup sex?"

Suki chuckles, pressing a kiss on his check. Sokka smiles, wrapping his arms around Suki's waist before pulling his lover into a passionate kiss. It doesn't take long for Sokka's hands to start to wonder all over Suki's body and search for any bare skin just underneath her clothing. Suki chuckles again at his actions.

"I guess it does," Suki says before pulling her boyfriend towards the nearest inn. The couple returned backed to Katara and Aang's house hoping no one would ask where they had gone. Of course, no one did because everyone knew quite well what they must have been up to. After all, getting "distracted" was quite a usual occurrence with Suki and Sokka even when they argued.

* * *

**So yeah. Leave a comment if you want. The next chapter will be be a start near where the last chapter ("Speech") ended. **


	14. Sickness or Something Else?

**So I decided to start this chapter where I left off on "Speech". Enjoy.**

* * *

Sokka can't help but grin at the amount of food that was sitting in front of him right now. Honestly, he was drooling but Suki closed his mouth before he could slobber all over the food. The two of them were celebrating the completion of Sokka's recent speech at his favorite restaurant with an all-you-can-eat meat special. Sokka dug into his food immediately after the server brought it out, causing his wife to chuckle. He managed to get through a couple of plates of food before realizing Suki hadn't really eaten anything.

"Hay, awe wu okay?" Sokka asks with his mouth full of food, earning him a disapproving look from his wife. He swallows the food quickly before repeating his question.

"Are you okay?" He asks again.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"You haven't really eaten anything. Did you not want anything that we ordered? We can get something else. Were you not hungry yet? We could have waited longer before going out to eat."

"No…I just…don't feel so good….Everything I've eaten over the past couple of days doesn't really seem to want to stay down."

Sokka frowns.

"Do you have a fever or anything else?"

"Not that I know of…," Suki feels her forehead to check but it feels normal to her.

"Maybe you should go see a doctor…."

"But-"

"I know, I know. You don't like doctors. At least go see Kat later on. For me?" Sokka pleads.

Suki sighs.

"Fine…."

"I would say try to eat a bit more but I don't know how sick you already feel…"

Suki smiles softly at the worried look on her husband's face.

"I think I'm fine right now. I'll try to eat a bit more and I'll go see Katara after work tomorrow."

Sokka frowns again.

"Before work, you mean," Sokka corrects, raising an eyebrow at the fact that his wife was still planning to go to work despite stating she hadn't been feeling well.

"I definitely meant after work," She pushes stubbornly. She rarely admitted to Sokka when she was in pain or when she felt sick. The fact that he would basically try to bed rid her being one of the main reasons why.

"Suki…," Sokka says slowly, giving her a pointed look.

"Sokka," Suki retorts, giving her husband a look that read "you're not changing my mind". Sokka sighs.

"Fine. Just please make sure to go see Katara tomorrow and be careful at work."

"I got it. Now eat up. We're supposed to be celebrating."

Sokka's smile returns to his face.

"You don't have to tell me twice."

* * *

"Hey, Kat are you busy right now?" Suki asks after calling her sister-in-law on the telephone. Suki still hasn't gotten used to her husband invention but she had to admit it was useful. Sokka had made sure to get one in every Gaang member's home so that it would be easy to communicate with each other.

"Nope. I actually just got back home. What's up?" Katara responded. She and Aang recently got engaged and were in the final stages of putting together Air Temple Island as well as planning their wedding. The young lovebirds had been staying in their new house on the island for the time being.

"…I haven't really been feeling well and Sokka-"

"Keeps bugging you to go see someone?" Katara finishes her sentence.

Suki chuckles because Katara was quite used to the way Sokka acted whenever someone he cared about was sick or hurt.

"Yeah. Do you mind if I come over for a little while?"

"That's fine. I'll see you soon."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

Suki hangs up the phone. She sighs, feeling rather nauseous again. She finds herself thinking that she probably just has a stomach bug or something little like that before making her way towards the door of her house and leaving to go see Katara.

* * *

"Hi." Katara greets Suki happily as usual, immediately getting the Kyoshian girl to sit down on the nearest couch in her house before going to fix tea for both of them. They chat for a little while, catching up on things that's been happening since they last saw each other, which was at a dinner party in celebration of Republic City's official opening. After chatting awhile, Katara decides to start seeing what may ailing Suki.

"So what exactly do you mean by not feeling well?" Katara asks.

"I haven't been able to keep much food down," Suki replies.

"That's it? No fever, no coughing, sneezing?" Katara presses.

"That's it," Suki responds after thinking for a bit.

"…When did your last cycle come?" Katara asks, starting to feel like she might know what is actually happening with Suki. Suki was married after all and had been talking to Sokka about possibly expanding their family.

"…," Suki looks at Katara with a blank expression before realization hits her, "six weeks ago."

"The look on your face tells me you're thinking that same thing I'm thinking. Lie down so I can make sure," Katara instructs. Suki complies, lying down on the couch will Katara goes to fill a small basin with water.

"Pull your shirt up, dumb dumb," Katara instructs, giggling at the fact that Suki honestly hadn't realized what was going on despite her usually sharp perception. Suki laughs too, wondering why she hadn't even considered the answer that was obvious at that point.

Katara bends some water out of the basin before hovering it over Suki's stomach. It only takes the master water bender a few seconds to confirm that their hunch was correct. She smiles brightly at the auburn girl.

"Yep. You're pregnant."

Despite Katara just saying that she was expecting, Suki was still having a hard time fully letting the idea sink it. None-the-less, a smile graces her face causing Katara's to become wider. Katara bends the water back into the basin and gets up to pour out the water as Suki sits back up on the couch. When Kat returns, she sits down next to Suki.

"Congrats."

"Thanks."

"I'm both happy for you two and weirded out at the notion of my brother being married and about to have child."

Suki chuckles.

"I guess I should go tell Sokka. He should be home from work by now."

"Tell me how he reacts when you get a chance."

Suki chuckles again before agreeing to do so. She stands up, says her goodbyes, and starts making her way back to her house. She can't help smile and place her hand on her stomach as she makes her way back home.

* * *

"So I went to go see Katara," Suki starts. She and Sokka were cuddling on the couch and had just finished eating dinner. Suki, despite how happy she was over the news, was rather nervous about telling Sokka. Not so much over the subject matter itself but about how she was going to tell him. It ended up taking her until they finished dinner to think of what she would say.

"And how did it go?" Sokka asks, looking at her with concern. Suki kisses his lips tenderly before giving him a soft smile.

"It went well. I'm just stupid."

Sokka lifts an eyebrow up out of confusion.

"I was thinking I was sick and hadn't realized the answer was really simple."

"So exactly what's making you feel so nauseous then?"

She breaks out into a smile, unable to help herself, causing her husband to be confused again.

"I'm pregnant."

Sokka blinks a couple of times before slowly beginning to grin.

"You're pregnant?" He asks, wanting to make sure he heard her right and that he wasn't just dreaming. She nods her head, confirming that he had indeed heard her correctly. Sokka pulls Suki into a hug suddenly, causing his wife to break out into giggles. He can't help but laugh in response. He peppers her face with kisses before pressing his lips against her own.

"So, we're going to be parents soon…," Sokka muses aloud.

"Yeah, you're going to be a daddy soon."

Sokka smiles, letting his hands lie on Suki's stomach. He honestly couldn't wait.

* * *

_One Month_

Sokka couldn't help but smile every time he looked at his wife. It wasn't extremely noticeable yet, but she was starting to get a baby bump- much to both of their excitement. Suki had still been fairly nauseous over the last few weeks but being her usual self, she acted like she was fine and wouldn't let Sokka help her whenever her food felt like it was trying to make its way back up. After a while, her food decided to finally start cooperating. Suki had insisted on still going to work for the first few months of her pregnancy despite the fact that she would be training with police academy students in hand-to-hand combat. Sokka had been against it of course, worrying about both his wife and his child's safety but eventually had to give in thanks to Suki's stubbornness.

Today, Suki would be doing some training with a group of about fifteen police academy students. She was still getting used to the fact that she would be training people who were mainly older than her rather than little kids or women that were her age. Some of her students that arrived early to set up the training room, were currently chatting since Suki had yet to arrive.

"Hey, is she really pregnant?" One of the oldest students, Fu, asks.

"Yeah, that's what I've been hearing from some of the others," another student, Jian, responds.

"What? Who the hell would get _her_ pregnant?" asks Kuo, one of Suki's more obnoxious students.

"Well, she is married," Li comments, busy putting out the training mats that were used during the student's sessions with Suki.

"What?" Kuo asks, surprised by Li's statement.

"She must be way different when she isn't training students. Because she's pretty much a slave driver here," Daichi, another one of Suki's more obnoxious students, states

"She's not that bad you guys...," Lian, one of Suki's few female students for today's training, says shyly.

"She's nice to you," Kuo mutters

"Probably because you're a girl and she's a total feminist," Daichi scoffs.

"More like you and Kuo are sexist asses that need to be whipped into thinking correctly," Yi corrects, earning her laughter from Lian, Fu, and Li.

"As if a girl can beat me. Last time I checked, I could kick Lian's behind in a match," Daichi retorts throwing a glare over at Lian, who immediately stops giggling.

"There's nothing amazing about beating someone who literally just started training a couple of days ago. If anything, she's making more progress in a few days than you did in a couple of months."

"You little-"

"HEY!" Suki yells, "This is a place for training not arguing. You're going to be working together in the field for as long as you two plan on working in the police force so you might as well get used to each other." Suki makes her way over towards the group of students that arrived early for training. The students bow in greeting.

"I'm sorry Chief Suki," Yi apologizes.

"What happened for you to get into an argument with someone?" Suki asks. Yi was usually the peacekeeper among Suki's students. There were very few things that would annoy Yi enough to start a confrontation but, when she was annoyed enough, Yi's words could definitely cut deeply.

"Kuo and Daichi were being sexist jerks again."

Suki sighs, rubbing her temples, one of the many habits she had gotten from her husband over the years.

"When everyone gets here, we're going to pair up and spar. Daichi, you and Yi are going to be sparring together and Kuo will be sparring with me."

Daichi throws Suki an annoyed look while Kuo can't seem to hide how scarred he is. Yi smirks at Daichi before agreeing to the idea that Suki gave.

"But, Chief, no offense," Li starts, "should you be sparring?"

"Why would I not?" Suki retorts.

"Um...we heard you were pregnant," Lian says softly.

"I am but I'm only a month along. We'll be training in full uniform today so I'll have armor on," Suki replies.

"I see," Li continues setting out mats.

"So wait, who are you married to again?" Kuo asks, trying to act like he knew she was married to begin with and shake off the anxiety he was having at the thought of sparring with Suki.

"Councilman Sokka, right?" Fu asks. Suki nods.

"So are we just going to skip over the fact that we're probably going to have a replacement teacher for almost a year?" Daichi asks, his annoyance made obvious through his speech.

"That's right. You won't really be able to teach us after a while, huh?" Yi asks, disappointment seeping into her voice.

"I'll be here for another month but after that I'll just be checking in every-once-in-a-while. As far as a replacement teacher, I'm currently looking into some possible candidates," Suki explains, as the rest of the students start to make their way into the training room. "Everyone pair up with someone unless I've already told you who your partner will be. We're going to go change into uniforms and spar for today's session," Suki announces.

Needless to say, both Daichi and Kuo got their asses handed to them during sparring.

* * *

_Three Months_

Suki smiles, making her way to the Main Council Hall. Normally, Suki would go see him in his office but Sokka was having a meeting today so she decided to surprise him and walk him home. When she first got there, the guards unsurprisingly stopped her, since civilians were not allowed inside during the meetings.

"Sorry, but we can't let you go inside while meetings are being held," the older of the two guards states.

"But isn't that Chief Suki?" The younger guards asks quietly.

"Unless I'm notified beforehand, we're not allowed to let anyone in," The older fellow retorts.

"Do you need a message to be given to one of the councilmen?" The younger man asks politely.

"No. I'm just waiting for the meeting to end so I can walk my husband home," Suki replies.

"Husband? I didn't know you were married, Chief," The younger guard states.

"And I didn't realize it was that was such a big secret...," Suki retorts, feeling a bit bad that no one seemed to know she and Sokka were married.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply-"

"No. No. I just don't really share stuff about my personal life so it isn't all that surprising that you wouldn't know."

"Should I get you a chair to sit on Miss?" The older guard asks upon realizing that Suki was pregnant. The younger guard looks at the older with a confused expression before looking back to Suki and realizing why he asked such a question.

"I'm-" Suki starts.

"I'll run and get you one," the younger guard states before she can stop him.

It doesn't take him long to return. Suki thanks him quietly and chats with the two guards as she waits for the meeting to be adjourned. She sits up and moves to the side of the doorway, when the councilmen begin to leave the Hall. Sokka is one of the last people to walk out and is surprised to see his wife there.

"Hey. Whatcha doing here, beautiful?" Sokka asks, walking over to her and planting a kiss on her lips.

"Figured I'd walk you home," Suki responds.

"I see."

Sokka looks at the guards beside her before saying, "Thank you for keeping her company while she waited." The two guards bow as the younger states, "If anything she kept us company." Sokka smiles, understanding that guarding jobs can be boring when nothing's particularly happening. He grabs one of his wife's hands and leads her towards their house, unable to stop smiling at the fact that Suki came to walk him home from work despite her feet being achy over the last couple of weeks.

"Want a foot message when we get home?" Sokka offers. Suki smiles softly before nodding her head.

* * *

_Five Months_

"Do you think I'll be an okay dad...?" Sokka asks his wife quietly. The couple was lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep. Suki looks at her husband, a bit shocked by his sudden uncertainty.

"I'm sure you'll be an amazing dad, Sokka. There's no need to worry."

"But what if I'm not ready...?"

"I don't think anyone's truly ever ready to have kids... But I know you'll do great. If anything we should be worried over whether I'll be a terrible mother."

"No way. You're going to be awesome. You work well with kids all of the time."

"Yeah, with other people's kids. This one's ours," Suki states, rubbing her belly that's grown in size over the last two months. Sokka smiles. "Plus I can't even cook or do any of those other things..."

"Since when do those things define a good mom? Plus you've been doing way better with cooking! You haven't burnt or under-cooked anything in weeks."

Suki blinks a few times before smiling softly.

"Yeah. We'll be alright. Neither one of us is going to be perfect but we'll definitely do our best and love our kid no matter what," Suki says, snuggling closer to husband.

"Yeah. I love you," Sokka says meeting Suki's eyes.

"I love you," Suki replies lovingly.

"And I love you too," Sokka coos, rubbing his wife's swollen stomach. Suki smiles and can't help but think that her husband will definitely be an amazing father.

* * *

_Seven Months_

Sokka wasn't particularly surprised to find his wife fast asleep on their couch when he came home from work. He chuckles to himself because she's drooling a bit but tries to avoid making any further noise so that Suki can sleep peacefully. He walks into the kitchen quietly and starts trying to decide what to make for dinner. Apparently he either wasn't quiet enough or his wife could hear the most minute of sounds because he soon hears a "how was work" coming from the living room.

"It was okay. Just paper work in the office."

"Oh. Did your assistant help?"

"I got a new one, remember? She doesn't know how to do most of the paper work yet but she is learning pretty quickly."

"I see. Is she pretty?"

Sokka frowns, knowing where this conversation was heading. Their conversations always went this direction every time he got a new assistant-which occurred often because the assistants would work for one councilman but then switch to a new one after a while. Suki wasn't usually the type to be worried over little things like the attractiveness of the girls Sokka worked with but her hormones were making her act unlike herself.

"I don't know. It doesn't really matter. No one can compare to how pretty you are," Sokka states, trying to end this conversation quickly through flattery. Sokka wasn't lying in the slightest but he would usually deliver his compliments with a bit more finesse. Suki wasn't having it though.

"Yeah right..."

Sokka sighs and walks into the living room. Suki won't look at him.

"Look at me, baby," Sokka tries. Suki still continues to look at anything but him. Sokka walks over to the couch and sits down next to his wife. He can't say he's particularly surprised by the tears that start falling down her cheeks. He wipes them away as the fall down her face. Suki frowns.

"I've gained a lot of weight. I eat a lot and sleep a lot. All I do is complain about stuff. A-and-"

Sokka cuts her off with a kiss.

"You're carrying a child, my love. That's going to take a lot of energy out of you so you need to eat and sleep a lot. If anything, I'm happy you're complaining because you never did before and it meant I didn't know what to do to help you but now I can make sure you're safe and comfy," Sokka tells Suki softly. "Stop worrying about me getting new assistants that may or may not be pretty. As far as I'm concerned, you carrying my child is the sexiest thing in the world." Suki blushes causing Sokka to smile at her. He kisses her again before playfully asking her if she wanted him to prove it. She can't help but smile, taking up his offer.

* * *

_Nine Months_

"S-sokka?" Suki whispers, panic filling her voice.

"Hm?" Sokka asks, still half asleep.

"I think m-my water broke," Suki says.

"Really?" Sokka asks, quickly sitting up despite his body wanting to go back to sleep.

Suki nods, biting her lips due to a contraction. Sokka rushes over to the phone in order to call Katara.

"Hello?" Katara answers after a while.

"Hey, I know its really late-" Sokka starts.

"This better be good or I'll kill you,"

"Suki's water broke..."

"Is she having contractions yet?"

Sokka looks into his bedroom, noticing the pained expression on Suki's face.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she is"

"Why didn't you just say that first then? I'll be right over!"

Katara's at Sokka and Suki's house in record time, immediately giving orders to her brother and soon-to-be husband.

"Suki, I need you to take deep breaths with me while we wait for Aang and Sokka to get back with some of the other stuff I need, okay?" Katara says as calmly as possible. Suki nods, copying Katara as she inhales and exhales deeply. Sokka and Aang return soon with everything Katara asks for.

"You're doing such a great job. Just keep listening to my voice, okay?" Katara instructs, starting to get Suki ready to give birth.

Katara continues to coach Suki through giving birth over the next hour, having to stop half way to make Aang drag Sokka out of the bedroom after he fainted. Upon regaining consciousness, Sokka was a bit more helpful, holding Suki's hand through the process despite feeling like his wife would honestly break his hand. After an hour passed, Suki finally gave birth to a healthy girl. Katara smiles coaxing her brother into coming with her to clean his daughter up while Aang awkwardly tries to help Suki compose her breathing. Sokka can't help but smile as he cleans his child, proudly bringing her back into the bedroom for Suki to hold her once he has finished.

"What are you two going to name her?" Katara asks, when she finally walks back into the couple's bedroom.

Sokka and Suki look at each other and smile.

"Yue," they say in unison, staring lovingly at their newborn daughter.

* * *

**So yeah. I hope the format was too confusing! I originally was going to separate the story into Suki finding out she was pregnant and Suki's pregnancy but I just decided to keep them together. I avoided making Sokka faint when he found out Suki was pregnant but couldn't help myself when she was giving birth! Sokka and fainting is just a must apparently! Sorry if the ending seems a bit rushed but I don't really know how to write a child birth scene. Maybe I'll get better in the future, considering there's four Sukka children total!**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment if you want~**


	15. Protective

**So...This turned out a lot longer than I was expecting... Probably because its pretty much 4 stories in one chapter. They all have to do with the same theme though so yeah... Enjoy!**

* * *

_Siblings_

Katara honestly couldn't think of the last time she and Sokka had hung out together, just the two of them. There was always someone with them-whether it was Aang, Toph, Suki, or their family-and they tended to get easily annoyed being around each other for long periods of time. It felt a bit strange walking around town with her older brother, just talking about things they didn't necessarily want to talk about with others around them. They talked about missing home and shared moments in their travels where they annoyingly sounded or acted like each other. Hell, Katara even let her brother talk nonstop about Suki. The Water Tribesmen had a habit of never shutting up about his girlfriend once he started talking about her and was constantly reminding everyone of how in love with her he was. Despite how annoying the topic can be when Sokka is just chattering on and on, it wasn't too bad if Katara directly asked him stuff about the Kyoshi Warrior. Of course she quickly had to pay for making her brother be mushy for ten minutes by talking about her relationship with Aang. For the most part, Sokka seemed a lot better about her and the Avatar dating but would always say he'd kill the airbender if Aang ever hurt his baby sister. After hanging out for a few hours, Sokka's stomach-unsurprisingly-started to growl. Katara laughs.

"Should we go to the market and pick up some ingredients for dinner?" Katara suggested.

Sokka nods his head in approval and the Water Tribe Siblings shifted their course towards the nearest market. It only takes them a few minutes to find the ingredients they need, fill up their basket, pay, and leave the market. Sokka "allows" Katara to carry the basket.

"Can't you carry this? It's kind of heavy." Katara states, shifting the basket around in an attempt figure out an easier way to carry it.

"I didn't want to assume you couldn't do it…," Sokka starts, watching his sister struggle with the basket.

"I honestly can't decide if I should be elated that you aren't as much of a sexist as before or annoyed that you aren't helping me," Katara states, "Never mind. I think I've got it now…."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, yeah. You better help me cook when we get back."

"I was going to….I'm not that much of a jerk."

"Wow…Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"Haha. Very funny. The food will take less time if I help cook too."

"Shoulda known you had another reason."

"What? I'm just thinking logically here."

The siblings continue walking and make it half way to their current residence before a group of five men jump out at them brandishing weapons.

"Hand over any money, prized possessions, and…that basket of food would be nice too while we're at it," one of the men demands as the remaining four begin to surround the Southern Water Tribe siblings.

Katara and Sokka look at each other and lift up a single eyebrow. Katara slowly lowers the basket on the ground and both siblings slowly pretend like their reaching for one of the items demanded from them. The men grin at them, not expecting what was about to happen next. Katara quickly pulls water out of her water pouch and attacks two of the men in front of her while Sokka pulls out his boomerang, throws it, and successfully hits another one of the men. Sokka catches his boomerang, quickly puts it back in its pouch, and unsheathes his space sword as another one of the robbers lunges at Sokka with a sword of his own. Katara continues to fight off two other men. She manages to freeze one of them to a nearby wall but struggles with the other man, a firebender.

"Dammit," Katara curses under her breath, when another one of her attacks fails. "Hey, wanna switch?" Katara yells to Sokka. Sokka glances over at his sister, despite being in a deadlock with his current opponent, and notices the firebender melting the ice shards Katara was bending at him.

"Nah, I'm good…but duck for a second."

Katara lifts an eyebrow at her brother, wondering what he was planning to do, but does as she is told. Sokka shifts his weight backwards, allowing himself to fall to the ground and using the momentum of his fall to send his opponent flying over himself and Katara into the firebender.

"When did you learn that?" Katara asks, admittedly impressed by her brothers handy work.

"I've been training, duh," Sokka says, as he gets back up to his feet.

The firebender quickly recovers and starts attacking Katara again.

"He just doesn't know when to give up," Katara mutters, bending more water out of her pouch, only to realize that she doesn't have much left. Katara sighs, "This is why I hate fighting firebenders without a water source nearby. It all just evaporates."

Katara dodges a couple of attacks from the firebender before bending her remaining water into a water whip and knocking the firebender out when she manages to find an opening.

"Final-" Katara is cut off by someone suddenly tackling her to the ground. A boulder smashes to pieces on the wall behind her.

"Sorry. You didn't move when I tried to warn you," Sokka states, getting to his feet before helping her up. Sokka gets back into a fighting stance beside Katara, holding his space sword steadily.

"An earthbender? I'm almost outta water."

"There was a fountain a couple of blocks ago but I don't think he's going to let you get over there."

"What should we do then?"

Sokka thinks for a few seconds.

"How much water do you have left," Sokka states, glancing over at his sister

"Enough to do a water whip but I need to get closer since he keeps sending boulders at us," Katara says quietly, so that only Sokka can hear her.

"I'll distract him," Sokka dashes forward, dodging the rocks being bended at him. Katara runs towards the earthbender while he is being preoccupied. When Katara gets close enough to the earthbender, she bends her remain water and is about to about to form a water whip when a boulder is launched towards her. She dodges but the earthbender quickly earthbends a sheet of rocks around her right ankle. The earthbender gets ready to launch another boulder towards Katara but suddenly drops to the ground, unconscious.

"His fault for not paying attention to me," Sokka announces, holding his boomerang in his hand. He walks over to Katara, in order to get her leg free.

"Think we need to get the city guards?" Sokka asks, after freeing Katara. The siblings hear footsteps coming closer to them. Sokka reaches for his Space Sword again, thinking one of the men got back up, only to see three city guards running towards them.

"We heard that a fight was going on over here. What happened?" One of the guards asks.

Sokka and Katara spend the next ten minutes explaining what happened as the would-be-robbers were rounded up before finally continuing to make their way back home.

"That-," Katara starts,

"-was annoying," Sokka finishes, taking the words right out of Katara's mouth.

"Who the hell fights that hard just for some money, valuables, and food? You'd think they would have made a run for it when they realized we were going to fight them rather than give them what they wanted."

"Maybe they really needed the food and money?" Sokka suggests.

"Who knows," Katara sighs, shifting the basket of food in her arms for the twentieth time that day, "Thanks for helping me out back there,"

"No problem. That's what big brothers are for. Even if they can't bend the elements."

"Bending isn't all that great. There are limitations. I should learn other fighting styles just in case I ever run out of water. I guess, I'll ask Suki or Tylee or maybe Mai."

Sokka smiles before frowning when his stomach growls again. Katara shakes her head at her brother's stomach.

"Let's get back home before you stomach gets louder," Katara comments, rolling her eyes.

* * *

_Sisterhood through Kyoshi_

The Kyoshi Warriors were on Ember Island beach for a two-day vacation and Ai had wondered off into some of the nearby shops. She ended up stopping at an ice cream shop after seeing many of the beach goers walking by with the cold dessert. She was waiting in line so that she could order some ice cream and three fairly hot guys, who had already ordered and eaten, started to chat her up. After getting her ice cream, the boys promised to walk her back to her friends so she continued to talk to them as they walked back to the beach. After walking on the beach for a while, Ai realized she hadn't been walking the right direction and tells the boys that she was going to turn around so she could meet up with her friends.

"Aw…Do you really have to go?" One of the boys asks, holding her hand that was not occupied by an ice cream cone.

"Yeah, my friends and I are going to play beach volleyball later so I don't want to miss it," Ai mentions, slowly trying to back away from the boys.

"We can play that together. Just stay with us for a little longer. It'll be fun," Another of the boys states, moving to her left side and wrapping his arm around her waist.

"Um…I really need to get going you guys," Ai says softly to the three handsome men standing around her, trying to get her hand free and move the arm that was around her waist.

"Hey Ai!," she suddenly hears. She and the three boys turn around, finding Jia, Tylee, and Suki walking towards them. Suki eyes them carefully, while Tylee runs over towards Ai and gives her a back hug.

"Ai, why don't you introduce us to your cute friends?" Jia suggests, also eyeing the men when she notices two of them holding Ai.

"This is Akihiko," Ai says motioning towards the boy who was holding her free hand, "this is Kenta," motioning towards the boy whose arm was wrapped around her waist, " and this is Satoru," motioning towards the last boy- who seemed uncomfortable with the current situation.

"We should get going, Ai. Sun already got the net up so we can play volleyball," Jia walks over to Akihiko and removes his hand from Ai's.

Kenta tightens his hold on Ai when Jia tries to pull her away, earning him a confused look from Ai and Tylee and a glare from Jia and Suki.

"Ai's going to come hangout with us for a little. We'll bring her back later, don't worry," Kenta announces.

"But…," Ai starts.

"Dude, come on. Let her go. Let's just go," Satoru coaxes, earning him a glare from Kenta. Satoru quiets down after that.

"Let's get going, cutie," Kenta says, trying to get Ai to come with him. Akihiko grabs Ai's wrist pulling her away from Jia. Ai, could have easily gotten out of the situation but she didn't want to start a fight. Unlike her though, Jia and Suki were currently fine with starting a fight as both of them grab one of the boys holding Ai and flip them over, hard. Satoru winces as he sees both of his friends get sent flying.

"What the hell?" Kenta asks, getting up to his feet.

"Ai's coming back with us, not you, got it?" Suki says slowly, as if she is talking to stubborn idiots.

Akihiko puts his hands up in surrender, not wanting to continue this fight, but Kenta walks back towards Suki.

"You little bit-," He doesn't even finish his sentence before Suki knees him in the groin, grabs Ai and Jia's hands, and walks back with them and Tylee towards the rest of her warriors.

"You okay?" Suki asks Ai after they get far enough away from the boys.

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I could have gotten out. I just didn't want to start anything…," Ai says softly.

"You shouldn't have gone off by yourself," Jia scolds, making Ai wince. Jia sighs before rustling Ai's hair. Ai smile appears again, happy that Jia isn't mad at her.

"How did you guys even know where I was?" Ai asks.

"Suki got worried about you," Tylee starts.

"And we luckily checked that side of the beach first," Jia continues. Suki still looked fairly peeved about what had just occurred.

"Thank you!" Ai smiles sweetly at her leader. Suki manages to smile back at her. The auburn haired girl got annoyed easily, but rarely allowed herself to be completely pissed about something. People messing with her warriors was an automatic piss off though.

"It's no problem. We're sisters after all," Suki reminds Ai, making all four girls smile.

"Hurry up, you guys!" Sun shouts, waving to them from a distance, "the net's up now!"

The four girls look at each other, before racing over to the other Kyoshi Warriors so that they can continue their fun vacation on Ember Island.

* * *

_Picking a Fight_

"Honestly, you're a bunch of loud hooligans! I can't hear over you're barbaric shouting!" Sokka yells.

He and Suki were at a bar, talking. They had come earlier, dancing and playing bar games with some of the other customers at the bar before a group of ruffians crashed their little party. At first everyone continued what they were doing but the music couldn't be heard over the talking of the newest bar customers and the games were also taken over by said guests. Suki and Sokka had settled for just talking while the remaining customers slowly began to just leave. Even the bartender was getting rather annoyed with the rowdy group of men, despite being paid for about ten drinks every five minutes. After a while, Sokka gets annoyed with the behavior of the obnoxious group of men and ends up yelling at them.

"Sokka. Calm down," Suki whispers, trying to get her boyfriend to settle down but he gets up to confront the group of men before she can stop him.

"Listen to your little girlfriend and sit down, scrawny," one of the men bellows. Sokka clinches his fists in annoyance, honestly at his limit on how long he could maintain his temper.

"Do you wanna fight, little lad?" another man provokes, causing Sokka to walk towards the group of men. Suki frowns, knowing her boyfriend was about to hit someone.

"Maybe," Sokka states, before punching the man who provoked him square in the jaw. Immediately the rest of the men stand up to fight him. One of the men grabs Sokka, holding him so that another one of the men can hit him. Before he can though, Suki suddenly walks in front of him. The man stops his punch before it can hit her.

"You oughta move, little missy. We have a bone to pick with this boy here."

"Sorry, but I'm not moving," Suki states defiantly.

"Suki, just move," Sokka demands.

"Shut it! I wouldn't have gotten up if you hadn't started a fight to begin with. Honestly," Suki mutters.

"Have it your way," the man, moves his arm back again, getting ready to just punch her. Suki grabs his arm and flips him over her shoulder, causing him to land on a nearby table.

The other men stare at the guy lying on the now broken table, surprised by what just happened.

"Now if you don't mind, we'll be going now," Suki states, snatching Sokka out of the hold he was in. Suki tries to drag Sokka out of the bar only to be blocked off. Suki sighs, her patience starting to wane at this point.

"Stay right here," Suki tells Sokka. When he begins to protest, she glares at him, effectively shutting him up. Before Sokka can even register that Suki had pulled out her fans, half of the men were already on the ground unconscious. It only takes her another moment to finish off the other half. Sokka opens his mouth, about to joke about the current situation, but decides to just shut up after remembering his girlfriend wasn't particularly happy with him at the moment. Sokka exchanges looks with the bartender, who doesn't seem quite sure what to do about what was currently happening either. Sokka reaches for his pouch of coins and pays for the couple drinks Suki had, the water he had, and adds a bit more money hoping it would be enough to pay for property damages. He grabs Suki's hand and drags her out of the bar.

"Er...thanks?" Sokka states, still a bit caught off guard by the fact that Suki just kicked fifteen men's asses without breaking a sweat.

"Uh huh. Don't start fights if you're just going to get caught," Suki states, crossing her arms and glaring at him. Sokka rubs the back of his neck guiltily. She begins to walk away, trying to get back to Sokka's appartment. When she passes by, Sokka notices that Suki's cheeks are bit flushed. He smirks slightly.

"You're drunk aren't you?" He asks when he catches up to her.

"Of course not. I can handle a couple of drinks," Suki replies calmly, continuing to walk.

"Do you fight people when you're drunk?"

"You're careless. I was worried about you. Drinks have nothing do with that."

"Ah, so you're overprotective and drunk."

"I should have just let that man hit you."

"That's mean...," Sokka pouts before stopping Suki, hugging her and kissing her lips apologetically, "I'm sorry. They were annoying me. I couldn't hear the words coming out of those beautiful lips of yours."

"We could have just left, dumb *hiccup* dumb," Suki pouts this time, pretending that she hadn't just hiccuped.

"You're totally drunk," Sokka remarks, smiling at how adorable his girlfriend looks while pouting.

"Am not!" Suki counters, getting out of Sokka's embrace, and walking away.

"Why are you going the wrong direction then?" Sokka asks her, smirking softly since he knew he had just proved his point. Suki usually had a good sense of direction and rarely got lost. Suki stops, blinks a couple of times, and looks at the buildings near her. She turns around and looks down the street to see what buildings were along that road, before realizing that she had indeed been going the wrong way. She pouts again, making Sokka smile at her cuteness. She starts walking again, this time in the right direction.

"I'm *hiccup* not drunk," Suki says as she passes by her boyfriend for the second time that night.

"You keep telling yourself that," Sokka laughs, "But thanks again. Who knows what would have happened to my gorgeous face?" He catches up with Suki quickly.

Suki rolls her eyes but reaches for Sokka's hand so that she can hold it as they make their way back to his apartment.

* * *

_Flirt_

Sokka honestly shouldn't have been that surprised. Suki looked amazing in the gown he had picked out for her but he honestly wasn't expected so many men to want to dance with her at the dinner party he was attending.

As a war veteran, one of the Avatar's best friends, and candidate for possibly becoming the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe in the future, Sokka was used to attending many dinner parties that would be held in attempts to make peace among the wealthier members of the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Water Tribes. Usually Sokka would go alone, dance with some of the girls there because it would make him seem less rude- at least that's what Gran Paku had told him-, and would eat whenever he got the chance. The women at the party were generally just there with their families or spouses, so dancing was the most fun they could get while they were at the dinner parties. Sokka was always one of the most popular men for the women to try and get a dance with. He would oblige to a dance or two but would feel extremely awkward doing so. After all, he was already taken.

Today's dinner party was different for a lot of reasons though. Both Water Tribe Chiefs would be attending this dinner party and Sokka would be bringing a date along this time. His girlfriend was visiting him this week and-to be honest- he'd forgotten that he had to go to a dinner party at the end of the week. When he realized, he quickly tried to see if Suki would go with him. Suki, not particularly liking crowds or getting dressed up, tried to get out of it multiple times but ended up going after her boyfriend begged her over and over. She couldn't help but be annoyed that he had already picked out a dress for her to wear, as if he was dead sure that he would be able to talk her into going.

When they arrived, it didn't particularly take long for men to start asking Suki for dances. She would always look over at Sokka, making sure it was okay first. He would motion for her to go ahead, despite not really wanting to let her go. Suki seemed rather uncomfortable each time she danced with someone but she couldn't reject or stop any of the dances without coming off as rude and thus making her date look bad. When she finally got a break, she headed over to Sokka. He smiles at her weakly.

"Doing okay?" He asks.

"I guess. I feel awkward dancing with other men," Suki retorts.

"I feel awkward watching."

"I'm surprised you aren't surrounded by women at this point."

Sokka shrugs his shoulders. He'd gotten a fair amount of dances from some of the girls there but there was someone else here gaining all of the women's attention.

"It's because someone else is here that they're more interested in seeing."

"Aw, you sound disappointed. Who are they so interested in seeing anyways."

"The Northern Water Tribe 'Prince'," Sokka states, rolling his eyes. Suki lifts an eyebrow, confused.

"Since when did the Northern Water Tribe have a prince?"

"Since the chief still decided to let a certain someone have another chance at being chief in the future."

"Oh. I think I know who we're talking about now," Suki says. Sokka had told her about his trip to the Northern Water Tribe with Aang and Katara. Namely about Yue but he had mentioned Hahn and how much he hated the haughty asshole.

"Honestly, I don't understand why they would still let that greedy bastard-"

"Sokka...,"

"What? I'm being truthful."

"No, not that. He's walking over here," Suki whispers, turning her attention towards the man in question.

"It's been a while, Southern peasant," Hahn greets, once he reaches Sokka and Suki. Sokka frowns automatically.

"It really has, Northern prick," Sokka retorts, "Thought you were dead."

"As you can see, I'm alive and well, thank you. And who might this sexy little vixen be," Hahn smirks, motioning towards Suki. Sokka glares at him. Suki is too busy gauging how quickly Sokka might lose his temper to be embarrassed by Hahn's words.

"I'm Suki," Suki bows politely.

"My girlfriend," Sokka adds, when he notices Hahn eyeing Suki.

"Ah, so you went from one bitch to another I see," Hahn provokes.

"Now you're just trying to start a fight, huh," Sokka mutters, trying to refrain from punching the dumb ass in front of him.

Hahn grabs one of Suki's hands and places a kiss on it before asking, "Care to join me for a dance?"

Suki looks at Sokka, wondering what she should do. He frowns, but motions for her to go ahead. Hahn smirks, "I'll be sure to take good care of her, don't worry."

Sokka couldn't help but frown the entire time as he watched Suki dance with Hahn. Hahn's hands were way too low on Suki's waist for Sokka's liking and he was holding her too closely. At one point, Hahn even dared to whisper in Suki's ear and whatever he'd said had made the Kyoshian girl blush brightly. Sokka had honestly had enough at this point. Luckily for him, the song finally ended. Suki smiles softly, bowing to Hahn in an attempt to leave but Hahn quickly asks her for another dance, knowing that she can't reject him as long as he asks politely. She would be the one coming off as rude if she rejected at that point. Suki reluctantly reoccupied the her position in Hahn's arms. As they danced around the room, Suki found herself looking at Sokka rather than paying attention to Hahn's flirting. She frowns softly when she loses sight of her boyfriend after a while. She admittedly was caught off guard by what happened next. One second she was dancing with Hahn, then she felt someone pulling her arm and found herself dancing with Sokka the next second, smiling at her like a goof. She can't help but smile back.

"Smooth," Suki praises, "You're almost getting to my level of sneakiness."

"You looked extremely uncomfortable so I decided to come ask you for a dance," Sokka explains.

"That was interesting way of asking."

"Yeah...I was going to actually ask but that damned bastard doesn't seem to know the meaning of keeping his hands to himself. So I thought it would be more fun to just steal you back."

Suki giggles at him before recalling the middle part of Sokka's statement.

"Keeping his hands to himself?" Suki asks, confused about what Sokka meant.

"Don't worry. I don't want you murdering anyone today," Sokka laughs jokingly. Hahn's hands had definitely been busy while he was dancing with Suki. Namely busy touching her behind whenever he got the chance.

"Thanks for rescuing me," Suki says playfully. Sokka kisses her, not particularly caring if it causes people to stare.

"No need to thank me. I wanted to dance with you earlier but he beat me to it."

"My, my. Overprotective and jealous, are we?" Suki giggles when Sokka sticks his tongue out at her.

Sokka and Suki spent the rest of their evening dancing and avoiding Hahn as much as possible before finally being able to retire for the night.

"Wanna head to my apartment and have some fun?" Sokka smirks, making it obvious what his idea of fun for the rest of the night would entail. Suki smirks back as the lovers walk out of the building in which the dinner party was held.

"Sure, if you help me get out of this damned dress," Suki says.

"Did you really think that dress wouldn't be coming off if you came over to my apartment?"

Suki blushes deeply. Sokka smiles at her before helping her into their ride home. Sokka pulls Suki closer to him once they settle inside of the carriage and flirtatiously whispers in her ear as they make their way back to his apartment.

* * *

**So yeah...I hope it wasn't extremely awkward. This is my first time writing fight scenes. I should probably take a break from trying to write stuff I haven't really tried writing before so that I can actually feel like I wrote something well. **

**I wanted to showcase Suki's personality a bit more too since I don't really feel like I do that very often. I hope I did well with incorporating people's personalities with the situation's I came up with.**

**I also decided to bring Hahn back, even though I hate him. I figured he was someone that would definitely make Sokka annoyed and overprotective towards Suki without Suki just handling the situation.**

**Anyways, Sorry for the long rant at the bottom of the page. Hope you enjoyed. Comment if you want.**


	16. Motivation

**Sorry that this is so short! I have way too many projects to do for school right now but I decided to write this while I was taking a break! Enjoy!**

* * *

Sokka was honestly drowning in paperwork.

The Water Tribe man puts the stack of papers that were in his hand back onto his flood desk and leans back in his chair. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath trying not to get stressed out over the work load. He wouldn't have had so much if Councilman Eito hadn't decided to take a premature vacation…and if he hadn't left work early during the past week but it was mainly Eito's fault!

Sokka sits up, trying to work up enough energy to actually start the task in front of him, when he hears a knock at the door.

"Come in," Sokka says.

The door opens slowly and in comes his adorable two year old daughter, wearing a furry panda costume rather than her normal clothes. Yue walks in excitedly holding her "paws" up and yelling "rawr" as she makes her way towards her father. Sokka can't help but smile at how cute she is before playing along with his child's attempts at being scary.

"AHHH!" Sokka pretends to yell, "It's a panda!"

Sokka playfully hides underneath his desk. Yue giggles happily in response. The Councilman waits a couple of seconds before crawling over to the side of his desk in order to peek at his daughter. When she makes eye contact with him, Yue roars again, making Sokka crawl back under his desk. Yue laughs again. Sokka stands up, holding his hands over his face and begins to walk away from his desk slowly, pretending that covering his face makes him invisible.

"I see you, Da-da!" Yue yells cheerfully.

Sokka gasps dramatically, making his daughter laugh even more.

"How can you possibly see me? You must have some amazing eyes, baby panda!" Sokka says, walking over his daughter and picking her up. He spins her around, smiling when she starts to giggle again. Sokka presses a kiss to his daughter's Water Tribe skin toned face before turning around to see his wife, smiling at the two of them. Sokka walks over to her and presses a kiss to her lips.

"Were you busy?" Suki asks.

"I'm a little swamped. I couldn't even work up the motivation to finish the first stack of papers," Sokka responds, sighing softly before allowing himself to look at his daughter and smile.

"Where'd you find this cute little costume?" Sokka inquires, playing with the ears attached to the hood Yue was wearing.

"Lian made it as an early birthday present for Yue. This silly monkey goose wanted to wear it immediately after she ripped the box open," Suki says, affectionately holding her hand against Yue's cheek. Yue giggles again, smiling at her mother. "Then she wanted to show you as well and couldn't bear to wait until you got home."

Sokka chuckles hardily before repeating Suki's last few words.

"She couldn't _bare_ to wait. Haha, bear and bear."

Suki rolls her eyes at her husband repeating her unintended pun, but smiles softly after Yue starts laughing with her father despite not understanding what was going on. Honestly, they both had such infectious laughs that understanding was never required in order for the people around them to start laughing too.

"Come on, Yue. Daddy has to finish up his work so he can come home on time," Suki tells her daughter.

Yue pouts softly before nodding her head in understanding. Sokka puts her down and Suki holds on to one of her hands before walking towards the door.

"Work weally hard, Da-da!" Yue yells, waving goodbye excitedly to her father as she walks out his office along with her mother.

Sokka smiles, finally finding himself motivated enough to tackle the mountain of paperwork on top of his desk.


	17. Ill

**Long time, no see! I've been super busy with school work and I will be pretty busy for the rest of April and beginning of May (I have a whole bunch of projects due and exams are coming up) so I make no promises of posting anything during then. I wrote this while I was taking a break so I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Suki hates when Sokka's sick. Mainly because she didn't like seeing him so miserable but also because he acted as if he needed her undivided attention every five seconds. One second he was asking for water the next second he wanted her to fluff his pillow and tuck him back into his sheets, since he kept knocking them off whenever he tried to move about in his bed.

Finally getting a break from her boyfriend constantly calling her, Suki hurries around the kitchen of his apartment, hoping to find the ingredients she needs to make soup. She didn't like the idea of having to leave Sokka by himself in order to go the market, especially with the fever he was currently having. She releases a sigh of relief when she manages to collect all of the ingredients she needs. Now all she had to do is cook soup. How hard could that be? Sure, she tended to either burn or under cook dishes in the past but today was a new day.

Apparently this new day is a repeat of every other day, because the Kyoshian still managed to burn the soup. In her defense, Sokka had yelled for her several times, trying to get her attention even though she was cooking. At first the damned man just wanted her to hand him parchment and some ink so he could write down the invention ideas that were coming to his mind as he lie in bed. But the other times, he simply called her for the purpose of what he put as wanting to "see her pretty face". Next thing Suki knows she smells something burning and has to run back to the kitchen to check the soup.

Suki frowns at the pot, inspecting the soup for damages. She sighs in relief for the second time that day upon realizing only the sides, where the soup clung to the pot, were burnt while everything else was still edible-at least by her standards. Sokka better lower his standards for today if he wanted to eat. Suki puts out the fire below the pot and is about to start putting some in a bowl when she hears her boyfriend calling her name again.

"SUKI!" Sokka yells, acting as if the kitchen were miles away from his room and that she could only hear him if he shouted.

"WHAT NOW?" Suki shouts back, hoping that he would pick up on the fact that there was no need to shout if she were to show him how loud yelling in the apartment was.

Sokka doesn't answer, making Suki worry. She puts the bowl down and rushes to Sokka's room. Suki frowns immediately at him, noticing the mess he'd managed to make by spilling ink all over the place. He was sitting up, coughing, and trying to clean up what he can but most of it was dripping from his sheets onto his floor. Suki sighs again walking out of his room to go find towels and soap to clean the ink up, silently hoping it wouldn't stain his bed sheets and the floor of his room. Suki was quite sure Sokka's landlord would be pissed if there were ink stains in an apartment that was being rented. Though to be honest, Sokka could just breathe too loudly nearby and his landlord would get peeved. That man did not like Sokka.

Suki quickly cleans up the ink only for Sokka to accidentally knock over the remaining ink a couple seconds later. Suki shoots him a glare, while Sokka rubs the back of his neck guiltily. Suki cleans up the new mess before exchanging the sullied sheets for clean ones and checking to see if Sokka still has a fever. She frowns softly when she notices that it hasn't broken yet. Suki leaves the room quietly and returns with a wet towel. She folds it up, coaxes Sokka to lie back down, and places it on Sokka's forehead.

"Does that feel a bit better?" Suki asks her sick boyfriend.

"Much better," Sokka whispers. Suki presses her lips against his softly, earning her a disapproving look when she breaks away from Sokka. "I'll get you sick." Suki smiles sweetly, ignoring his concerns.

"Hungry?" She asks. She isn't surprised when he nods his head softly, trying not to let the towel on his head fall off.

Suki walks to the kitchen, fixes Sokka a bowl of soup, grabs a spoon, and walks back to Sokka's room. Sokka reaches out to grab the bowl but Suki swats his hands away playfully before telling him to scoot over a bit and to sit back up. She sits on the edge of his bed and begins to feed him the soup, blowing on it before giving it to him. It doesn't take long for him to finish the food. Suki makes him lie down again and puts the wet towel back on his forehead.

"Is the towel still cold enough?" Suki asks gently. Sokka nods his head. Suki smiles softly at him before cupping his cheek.

"You really shouldn't stay in here longer than you need to. You'll catch my cold," Sokka chides.

"I'll be-" Suki's sentence is interrupted by her sneezing. She frowns immediately, shooting a glare at her boyfriend that could be read as "don't say a word".

Sokka smirks, "I told you so!"

"Fuc-" Suki sneezes again, breaking up her sentence, "you."

"Huh? What were you about to say? I couldn't hear you over me being right and you sneezing. Now go eat dinner then come rest in here with me," Sokka pushes her off of his bed playfully, earning him another glare. Suki gets up and walks to his doorway. She turns around, about to curse at him again but she feels another sneeze coming. Sokka snickers softly making Suki annoyed both by his actions and at the fact that she can't stay mad at him when he looks so cute while laughing. That damned man was lucky that he's adorable and ill or Suki wouldn't put up with all of his bullshit.

Suki walks to the kitchen yet again, this time to get a bowl of soup and a spoon for herself. Not particularly wanting to eat by herself at the dinning room table, Suki returns to Sokka's room. She's caught off guard by Sokka, who is standing by the door rather than lying in bed.

"You're supposed to be lying down, dummy," Suki chides. Sokka rolls his eyes before pulling his girlfriend towards his bed and sitting her down. He takes the bowl of soup and spoon from her before she can protest and feeds her the soup, just like she had done for him earlier. When he finishes feeding her, he sets the bowl and spoon down on the nightstand beside his own dishes.

"My cooking really sucks...," Suki comments, making a slightly disgusted face.

"Really? I thought it tasted fine," Sokka responds, sitting down beside Suki on his bed.

"Your taste buds are probably off since your sick,"

Sokka chuckles, "Think so?" Suki nods back, smiling softly.

"Do you still have a fever?" Suki asks, giving him a concerned look. Sokka feels his forehead before shaking his head in response.

"That's good," Suki says, cupping Sokka's cheek.

She kisses Sokka's lips again, only for Sokka to push her away a little bit.

"I'll get you-," Sokka starts, his sentence getting interrupted by Suki placing another kiss on his lips.

"You already got me sick. It doesn't matter anymore, now does it?" Suki says playfully, sniffling a little bit to get her point across.

"Sorry," Sokka apologizes.

"It was bound to happen. No need to apologize. But if you really want to apologize, I can think of something you can do to make it up to me."

"Oh? And what might that be?"

Suki smirks before playfully pushing her boyfriend down so that he was lying on his bed again. She lies down beside him, pressing kisses along his jawline.

"You're really going to get sick...," Sokka states.

"That just means I can bug the hell out of _you_ every five seconds while you take care of me," Suki laughs.

"I don't think I'd mind that too much," Sokka starts, "why don't I start taking care of you right now?"

Suki giggles softly as her boyfriend's hands caress her hips gently.

"I thought we were going to be resting after I finished eating?"

"We can rest after this."


	18. Massage

**Yay! My final exams are over. In celebration, I decided to make the situation in this chapter similar to one of my previous chapters. T+...probably. Hope you like it!**

* * *

Today was tiring, to say the least. Tiring enough to make Katara consider going back home early despite her usual belief that she would attend every meeting, go to every gala, and talk to whomever she needed to in order to bring about peace. She, as well as the rest of the Gaang members, had attended multiple meetings this morning in hopes of settling the issues surrounding the Fire Nation settlements in the Earth Kingdom. Unfortunately, despite the many meetings that happened today and over the last few years, the settlers still refused to move back to Fire Nation territory and Earth Kingdom citizens living near the settlements refused to make any compromises.

After about eight hours of meetings, Katara was happy to finally be returning to the house the Gaang were staying in nearby.

"Finally!" Aang sighed, plopping himself down on the nearest cushion in the house.

"No kidding," Sokka agreed, also opting to sit down on a cushion.

"I'm taking a nap…," Toph grumbles, about to walk to her room only to decide it was too far away and that the floor was good enough.

"I think I might do the same," Zuko mutters, rubbing his temples as Mai lets out one of her trademark sighs. They immediately head towards their room quietly.

"I'm glad that's over but I feel bad for Suki and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors," Katara states.

The Kyoshi Warriors, who had accompanied everyone to the meetings and were staying in the rented house too, would be on guard duty at a gala that was happening soon and wouldn't be back for at least another three or four hours.

"Yeah. I would have just been like screw this mess. I'm not showing up to play guard after sitting in boring-ass meetings for hours upon hours," Toph replies.

"One, you shouldn't curse, you're only fourteen. Two, sleep in your bed, not the floor. Someone's could forget you're there and step on you or trip on you. And three, even if that woman is tired, Suki isn't the type to shy away from such agreements. She knew fully well that she would be going straight to that gala after hours upon hours of meetings," Katara says.

"One, shut it Sugar Queen. And two, I'll bet you 200 gold coins that her warriors probably tried to get their way out of said agreement though."

"Hahaha, there's no need for anyone to bet when they know you would win. Jia looked like she was about kill somebody for making her endure eight hours of boringness and everyone else looked like they could fall asleep any second. l highly doubt they wanted to go stand around for a few more hours," Sokka snickers.

Katara giggles in response, recalling the fact that Tylee and Sun both looked like they would fall over at any second since they had chosen to stand up and nod off during the meetings.

"I guess I should at least make sure dinner is ready by the time they get back. I'll take a short nap then start cooking," Katara thinks aloud, yawning and walking towards her room.

"Take your time, you have awhile before they get back," Aang suggests before deciding to use the cushion, that he was currently occupying, as a pillow.

* * *

Aang was definitely right. It was still early afternoon when the Gaang had returned from the meetings but the sky had darkened by the time the Kyoshi Warriors had returned.

"Damn, I didn't think it would last that long," Suki mutters.

"You'd think they would get more guards or only put some of us on duty at a time so we could take turns and be able to take breaks," Ruomei complains.

"You really shouldn't be surprised. They were short on workers to begin with. That's why they asked us to help," Yuke sighs.

"It wasn't that bad you guys," Tylee tries.

"Not that bad my ass!" Jia exclaims, making Tylee cringe and think that she had just angered the older woman.

"Jia means to say that you did kind of get to play server and hand out champagne glasses rather than help us with guarding," Ai explains, assuring Tylee that Jia wasn't mad at her all-the-while trying to calm down a wounded-up Jia.

"Anyways, go relax everyone. You all did amazing as usual," Suki says, officially dismissing her warriors for the day.

"Oh spirits, I smell food!" Yuke shouts excitedly, running towards the kitchen in the house.

"Oh, hey. I thought I heard you guys," Katara smiles, greeting Yuke, "the food's done I just started reheating it earlier because it got cold."

"Thank you!" Yuke smiles back. The rest of the Kyoshi warriors walk in, greeting Katara.

"Anyways I'll be taking a bath if you all need anything," Katara says.

"Thanks, Kat!" They say in unison.

* * *

Never in Katara's life had a bath felt so refreshing. Well, maybe that's a lie. The bath she took in the Fire Nation Palace, when the Gaang met back up after defeating Ozai and Azula, was pretty refreshing too but that didn't making this bath less helpful in de-stressing Katara.

After soaking for a while longer, she decides she should probably get out and check on the Kyoshi Warriors. She gets dressed in her pajamas quickly and dumps the bathwater out before heading down the hall, towards the other wing of the house where the Kyoshian girls were staying. She doesn't get far though after hearing voices coming from her brother's room.

"Does that feel good?" her brother asks.

"Yeah," a voice, that definitely sounded like a girl's, responds-sounding more like a moan than normal talking.

Katara's eyes widen a bit when she realizes that the voice definitely belonged to Suki. She can't help but wonder if those two were really doing what it sounded like they were doing.

"Lower, please?" Suki coaxes.

"Right there, darling?" Sokka asks.

"Mmm, yeah. H-harder."

It wasn't long before Katara couldn't accept the notions, of what those two were doing, running through her head any longer and she barges into her brothers room.

Both Sokka and Suki's eyes meet Katara's, thanks to her sudden entrance. Suki, who was devoid of her face paint and armor, was lying topless-but still wearing a skirt-on her stomach in Sokka's bed while Sokka was kneeling beside her. Sokka lifts an eyebrow at his sister while Suki blushes and averts her eyes.

"And what might you two be doing?" Katara asks.

"Why does it matter? We can do what we want," Sokka frowns softly.

"Considering dad doesn't really approve of you two doing that kind of stuff, are you so sure about that?"

"Sorry, it's not what you think. Sokka offered to give me a massage since it's been a long day," Suki explains, her face still pink thanks to the current situation.

"And why did that require you to not have a shirt on?" Katara asks, raising an eyebrow at the pair.

"Do you really expect me to be able to give her a proper massage when she has her uniform on?" Sokka inquires.

"But she didn't have to take off her wrappings. She could have-" Katara starts.

"She had them on. They got in the way. So they got taken off. It's as simple as that," Sokka counters, making Katara frown.

"Whatever. Just control yourselves. And Suki, hit him if he tries anything on you that you don't agree to."

"Got it," Suki reassures, as Katara walks out of the room and closes the door behind her. Sokka rolls his eyes before starting to massage Suki's back again.

"It really is a good thing that she doesn't know, huh?" Sokka says, smirking sensuously at his girlfriend. Suki bits her lips softly while Sokka continues massaging her. Sokka knew quite well that though most people just saw massages as relaxation and a way to get out some tension, Kyoshians saw it in a more _intimate_ light. For Suki, getting caught getting a massage was practically the same as getting caught while engaging in foreplay.

"Sokka…," Suki whispers softly.

"I'm taking that as permission to go a bit further," Sokka announces, sliding his girlfriend's skirt and remaining wrappings down her legs. Suki smiles softly at his words and actions before helping him get undressed.

Suki definitely wouldn't have to worry about hitting him for doing things she didn't agree to.

* * *

**In case you couldn't tell, the chapter I based the ending situation on was "Wet"! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed. Leave a comment if you want~**


	19. Family

**Sorry this took so long! I suck at trying to transition between different parts of stories so that took me a while to come up with. Enjoy~**

* * *

Never had Suki been so happy that her fiancée had managed to talk her into something despite her stubbornness. If it weren't for him, she would be shivering way more than she already was in the cold climate of the Southern Water Tribe. Despite the chills running down her spine, Suki couldn't help but feel excited to visit Sokka's birthplace and, more specifically, meet his Gran Gran.

After successfully proposing to Suki - successful in that she said "yes" and not in that Sokka's plan for the evening working exactly the way he wanted -, Sokka had excitedly shared the news with everyone during his last visit to the Southern Water Tribe. Out of everyone there, his grandmother seemed the happiest and possibly even more enthusiastic at the prospect of her grandson getting married than he himself. The elderly woman had encouraged Sokka to bring his soon-to-be-bride to see her during the next time he planned to visit. Sokka promised that he would bring the idea up but explained that he didn't want to pressure his fiancée into visiting since he was sure she would have a difficult time getting used to the temperature and food. Disregarding Sokka's worries entirely, Suki had quickly agreed to visiting and was currently shivering her ass off as she and her fiancée made their way further south.

Sokka frowns softly as he watches Suki shiver. He had suggested that she wait inside of the ship for as long as possible since it was warmer inside but she, as usual, stubbornly chose to ignore his suggestion and tried to get use to the cold. Suki can't help but stare at the mass of land that was getting closer to the ship as she stands on the main deck of the ship. They would be docking soon which meant she would be getting to meet everyone soon as well. Her heart started to beat a little faster despite her attempts to stay calm. Even though she was excited to meet everyone, she couldn't help but feel nervous too. She wanted to make a good impression after all.

"Doing okay, beautiful?" She hears someone say behind her. She turns around and sees Sokka giving her a concerned smile. She smiles reassuringly but shivers involuntarily when a gust of wind blows by. Even if her continued shivers weren't enough of a hint, her flushed cheeks were a sure giveaway that she wasn't as okay as she was trying to seem.

"There's more clothes inside if you need more layers," Sokka suggests, walking up to Suki and hugging her from behind.

"Any more layers and I won't be able to walk properly," Suki retorts, cupping one of Sokka's cheeks with a gloved hand.

"I'd rather you have trouble walking than catch a cold or worse."

"Do you really feeling like having to pull me through the snow the whole time if I can't walk?"

"Like I said, I'd rather you have trouble walking than catch a cold or worse. If that means dragging you around in the snow, I'm fine with that."

Suki chuckles softly, imagining her lover trying to pull her around throughout the village like a sled.

"I think I'm fine right now."

"Fine. If I see you shivering any more than you already are I'm stuffing you in more clothes. No questions asked. Got it?"

"Yes sir," Suki answers, rolling her eyes but smiling at his concern.

"Nervous?"

"A bit…."

"There's no need to worry. Gran Gran was excited about us being together even before we got engaged. I swear she was always saying she couldn't wait to meet the woman who managed to put up with me and get me straightened out. Whatever that's supposed to mean."

Suki chuckles again before kissing Sokka's cheek. Everything should be fine.

* * *

It wasn't much longer before the ship docked and the newly engaged couple made their way off of the ship. They were greeted by Chief Hakoda as well as Katara, who hadn't known the couple would be visiting.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were in Omashu with Aang?" Sokka asks his sister after pulling her into a hug.

"I could ask you the same thing and we finished up early. I hadn't been home in a while so I asked Aang to drop me off," Katara responds before turning towards Suki to give her a hug, "It's been a while! You aren't shivering too badly I hope."

"I'm surviving. Sokka wanted me to visit since…you know…," Suki smiles shyly, still a bit unable to believe that she was currently engaged with the love of her life. Katara giggles understandingly at Suki.

"It's nice to see you again, Suki," Chief Hakoda greets, hugging Suki as well, "Been keeping my troublemaking son in line, right?"

"Yes sir!" Suki retorts, laughing along with Katara when her fiancée frowns in response to being called a troublemaker.

Despite frowning only moments ago, Sokka finds himself smiling again when his father links arms with Suki and chats with her as the group of four make their way into the village.

It didn't take long for them to reach the village and it took even less time for people to start staring at Suki. Suki was used to people staring at her whether it was because of her Kyoshi Warrior face paint and uniform or simply because of her rare auburn locks; despite being used to it, Suki couldn't help but feel a bit nervous with the amount of attention she was managing to attract.

"Why don't you and Sokka stay here for a moment? Katara and I will go get my mother so she can stop talking poor Pakku's ears off about how excited she is to me you," Hakoda suggests to Suki. Suki nods in response and watches as Katara and Hakoda make their way to one of the huts further inside of the village. Being too busy watching them walk off, Suki is caught off guard by her fiancée suddenly encasing her in a hug from behind again.

"Doing okay so far?" Sokka asks, resting his chin on her shoulder as he talks. As if on cue, another shiver runs down her spine.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just wasn't expecting so much attention," Suki says, once again taking note of the amount of people staring at her, "I'm not even wearing my Kyoshi Warrior make-up, though I suppose my skin is practically just as pale."

"If anything, they're just staring because you're so gorgeous."

"Yeah, right. There probably wondering who's the lady their amazing war hero is clinging on to like a baby koala sloth?"

"Hey Sokka!" Someone yelled.

Sokka lets go of Suki and turns towards the direction of the voice before waving to an older man and younger woman.

"Hi Akina. It's been a while Kaisho," Sokka greets, giving both of them a hug when they walk over to him and Suki.

"I know right. You were a little midget last time I saw you. I almost didn't believe Akina when she told me that it was you that was walking into the village with the chief," Kaisho says, "You've really grown up."

"I wasn't that small when you and the other men left to fight the war. Plus Akina has seen me way more than you have so of course she'd know what I look like now," Sokka chuckles.

"That's true," Kaisho agrees. He nudges his little sister slightly, when he notices that she had been staring at the auburn haired woman standing beside Sokka. Akina jumps, having been completely focused on the woman in front of her rather than on her brother and Sokka.

"Who's this?" Akina asks politely, gesturing towards Suki who had been quietly observing the exchange between the two Water Tribesmen.

"This is Suki, my fiancée," Sokka introduces, smiling happily.

"It's nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you from Katara!" Akina greets, smiling sweetly towards Suki.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Suki smiles back, trying to hide another onset of shivers.

"Now I know for a fact I haven't seen you in a while!" Kaisho tells Sokka, making the latter chuckle again, "It's nice to meet you, Miss Suki. Take good care of him for me. He's like a little brother to me!"

"Of course," Suki smiles.

"Sorry that I was staring! You're just really pretty," Akina says shyly as Kaisho nods in agreement.

"It's alright," Suki responds just as shyly, having not expected her to say such a thing. Sokka nudges Suki playfully in a "I told you so" manner, causing Suki to roll her eyes at him.

"Are you going to be staying for long, Suki?" Akina asks.

"I'll be here for about a week or so," Suki replies.

"I see. Kaisho and I need to get going before our mom decides to hunt us down. It's our turn to cook dinner tonight and she'll kill us if we start late. Hopefully we'll meet again!" Akina says.

"I look forward to it," Suki responds.

"See you later," Kaisho states before walking with his sister back to their hut.

"I guess I really haven't seen Kaisho in a while," Sokka says aloud.

"I'm guessing you two were really close," Suki states.

"Yeah. To be honest, everyone is like one big happily family here but if wasn't off with my dad or annoying Katara, I was usually tagging along with him and some of the older boys since there weren't any my age. We were always getting into some kind of trouble."

"Guess that means you haven't changed much. Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker"

"Haha. You're so funny."

"You know you love me."

Sokka smiles before capturing her lips. The two of them don't bother to break apart until they suddenly hear someone clearing their throat.

Suki blushes despite her already flushed cheeks. This was not the way she wanted to start off greeting people. On the other hand, Sokka just smiles sheepishly at his father, who had been the one to get their attention by clearing his throat. Behind him, Katara giggles along with an elderly woman Suki had yet to meet.

"Anyways, now that we have your attention," Hakoda starts, trying not laugh at his son's lack of actual guilt over the public display of affection he had just broken up, "Suki, this is my mother - Sokka and Katara's grandmother - Kana."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Suki greets.

"The pleasure is all mine. And, please, just call me Gran Gran," Kana says before pulling Suki into a hug, "You've been on the boat for a long time. Let's head inside so you can have a seat, have something to eat, and get warmer."

The group immediately heads towards the hut and settle down inside. They have arctic hen for dinner, which Suki found interesting trying to eat. It wasn't a taste she was used to, that's for sure, but she figured anything was better than her own cooking and that the food had an acquired taste. After dinner was eaten and put away, everyone chose to gather around the fire and talk. Pakku had chosen to retire for the night rather than sit and talk though he may have just grown tired of Sokka constantly calling him Gran-Pakku and trying to bond with the other man since they were family and had been for years since Pakku married Kana. Sokka didn't seem to see that Pakku still had very little desire to bond with him though. As if Suki's troubles with the food wasn't a hint enough, she had yet to become fully comfortable with her current location. Despite being prompted on multiple occasions to call her Gran Gran, found herself calling Sokka's grandmother by her formal name - since she still felt weird calling the older woman any other names so far - and, on top of that, Suki still found herself shivering and unable to retain much heat despite sitting right by the fire and Sokka's attempts to warm her up by siting closely. She found herself just thinking that it would take her some time to get used to both and that she would have more opportunities to do so in the future. She would get more accustomed after awhile.

"So, Suki, Sokka and Katara have told me a lot about you already but I want to hear more," Kana prompts.

"Oh! Tell her how you and Sokka met," Katara snickers. Katara had already heard about Sokka and Suki's first meeting from the Kyoshian girl ages ago. She had purposely avoided telling her Gran Gran the story because it was much more entertaining when both Suki and Sokka were present to tell it. On-the-other-hand, Sokka had avoided talking about it in full detail anytime his grandmother had asked, namely out of sheer embarrassment.

"I haven't heard this either. Sokka usually won't tell us much," Hakoda adds, making Sokka rub the back of his neck out of guilt and nervousness.

"Well," Suki begins. She explains how she and her warriors had captured Aang, Kat, and Sokka and how Sokka had been a sexist pig to her and her warriors.

"And what happened after that, Sokka?" Katara coaxes, absolutely amused by the disapproving looks Sokka was getting from his father and grandmother.

"I got by butt handed to me then I left and brooded over it in the inn Kat, Aang, and I were staying in," Sokka sighs, causing both Suki and Katara to giggle.

"But he came back, apologized, and asked me to train him," Suki continues.

"Yeah. She made me wear a dress and makeup but I did learn a lot from her back then," Sokka says nostalgically. Sokka finishes up the story quickly, definitely making sure to mention the fact that he blocked on of Zuko's attacks before it could hurt Suki and that Suki gave him a kiss on the cheek-the addition of both pieces of information making Suki roll her eyes at him.

"So basically. Sokka isn't _as_ sexist as he used to be thanks to this woman," Katara tells Kana, causing the elderly woman to smile, "he still needs to be whacked from time to time though."

"Well, none-the-less I'm glad my dear grandson has met someone like you, Suki," Kana smiles, patting the pale-skinned girl's shoulder.

More stories are told throughout the night including many of Sokka's misadventures during his childhood, much to his chagrin. The conversation then moves towards talking about how the family hadn't been fully together in a while since both Sokka and Katara had been busy helping bring peace and order to the world.

"So, how about your family? They must be very excited for you engagement," Kana asks.

Sokka gives Suki a concerned look while the remaining occupants in the hut look at Suki expectantly. Sokka puts an arm around her shoulder reassuringly, causing Suki to smile back appreciatively.

"I've actually never met my family. Apparently, my father was a fisherman but he went out on his boat one day and never returned. My mother was a Kyoshi Warrior but died during childbirth. Other than their names, that's all I really know about them. People in my village just kind of took turns looking after me until I was old enough to start training as a Kyoshi warrior. I never really stayed in one place long enough for any of them to really be a like foster family to me though. Even when I was old enough to start training, I switched between staying at my teacher's house and paying for an inn room with the money I made doing jobs around the village," Suki answers.

The hut stays quiet after Suki stops talking.

"Sorry. We shouldn't have brought that up," Katara starts, trying to break up the awkward silence.

"No. No. It's fine. That's just the way I grew up and I can't really change that," Suki responds.

"Well. At the very least, I want you to know that you have a family here anytime you need us," Kana says, pulling Suki into a hug. Hakoda and Katara nod in agreement. Suki blinks a couple of times, taken aback by the statement.

"Thank you, Gran Gran," Suki smiles, finally feeling comfortable enough to call the elderly woman by that name as she returns the hug. All-the-while, she also found herself feeling a little bit warmer thanks to how kind Kana's words are.

This was the first time she had ever really thought about the idea of having a family. The closest thing she had really ever had to a family was her warriors and she slowly found that the Gaang was like her family as well but this was the first time anyone had really ever out-right said that they were her family.

_A family, huh,_ Suki thinks as she smiles a little bit wider.

* * *

**Yay! I hope you enjoyed and as always leave comments if you would like.**


	20. Questions

**Sorry it took so long! Enjoy**

* * *

Suki wasn't particularly surprised by the fact that her kids became more inquisitive as they grew older. Her husband was the same way and still was and she had always been curious herself. What did surprised her were the questions they would ask. She and Sokka had agreed to try answering the kids questions as honestly as they could, even if that meant just saying they don't know but could help the kids find out. At first their agreement wasn't very hard to keep but as the kids grew older their questions definitely got bolder. The kids practically believed their parents had the answers to anything and - since they were told to ask questions whenever they needed to when they were at school - they didn't see why they should ever feel weird about asking their parents any of their questions at home.

That being said the boldness of their questions rarely made the couple honestly cringe or be shocked. Suki could only recall there being two extremely uncomfortable questions she was asked by her kids that did manage to throw her off. The first was her children deciding to ask her why they were born. She could remember simply saying because she and their father always wanted kids and leaving it at that since the statement wasn't untrue; there was just a little bit more of backstory to each of the kids' births that she wasn't particularly keen on telling them.

Suki had pretty much been desperate to have Yue when she first moved to Republic city, making Suki disappointment in herself for wanting to bring a child in the world solely to feel less useless rather than actually wanting to have a child. That being said Suki knew either way she wouldn't love Yue any less. The twins, Hakoda and Kyoshi, were the result of multiple happenings. The first being that Suki and Sokka wanted another child that wouldn't be too much younger than Yue and the second being Yue throwing a tantrum in the middle of the market, shouting that she wanted a baby brother and sister - much to Suki's embarrassment and many customer's entertainment - after her father's answer of _maybe_ having one _sooner-or-later_ didn't please her. The only reason why Suki didn't particularly scold Yue on the spot over her tantrum was because the child had never once done that before even when she really wanted something. That being said, the couple figured they would be only be adding one more child to the household, they hadn't expected Yue's wish of having a baby brother _and_ sister to come to fruition. Lastly, as much as Suki didn't want to admit it to her youngest child, Hiroyuki wasn't particularly planned, especially since having the twins led Sokka and Suki from raising one kid to suddenly raising three. Nonetheless, the couple welcomed their youngest to their world, with a little bit of trouble along the way, but both Suki and Hiroyuki were fine now. Life definitely had a way of throwing both Suki and Sokka for a loop.

The second uncomfortable question came from their eldest daughter when she was twelve.

"Mama, can I ask you a question?" Yue asked Suki after the Kyoshian woman came home from work that afternoon and had settled in the kitchen. Yue had opted to sit at the kitchen table where she found her mother looking through the mail.

"Sure darling. Just give me a second. I'm going to make some tea, would you like some?" Suki responded.

"Yes ma'am."

Suki prepares the tea only to jump when someone suddenly enveloped her in a hug. She turned around only to see it was her husband, who was currently sporting a cheeky grin since he had managed to sneak up on her. He had been in the backyard of their home playing with Hakoda and Hiroyuki.

"Would you like some tea too? I make no guarentee that it will be as good as Iroh's," Suki asked him.

"Sure and you should have emphasized the 'tee' in guarentee. It would have been funnier," Sokka suggests, smiling when he notices Yue giggling at his suggestion. Suki doesn't find the pun all that hilarious of course and just rolls her eyes in response.

"Oh yeah. Yue, is your question specifically for me or do you want dad to answer it too?" Suki asks turning her attention towards her daughter again after setting out three cups to pour the tea into. She would go see if her other children wanted tea after answering Yue's question.

"I think he should be able to answer the question I have too," Yue says after thinking about it for a little bit. Suki hands her husband a cup of tea before handing Yue her cup. She then sits down across from Yue at the table while her husband opts to stand in the kitchen doorway so he could watch Hakoda and Hiroyuki through the clear sliding door that leads to the backyard.

"So what's your question?" Sokka asks. Both he and Suki take a sip of their tea as they wait for Yue's question.

"Does sex feel good?" Yue asks. Both Suki and Sokka choke on their tea. Suki is able to recover from her shock quickly but Sokka still trying to grasp the fact that his twelve year old daughter just asked that question.

"Uh…what brought this question on?" Suki asks, honestly having no clue how Yue suddenly even knew what sex was. Knowing Yue, she may have known for a while but just realized she didn't have answer to the question she was currently asking. Yue was notorious for learning stuff before she honestly even needed to know it. She was constantly going to Republic City University's library in hopes of finding material that was a bit more challenging than what she would get at school.

"We had sex education today. Remember daddy, you had to go to that meeting with the principal so that you could make sure you were okay with me hearing all the stuff they were going to teach," Yue starts.

Sokka is quiet for a few seconds before realization finally dawns on him.

"Oh yeah," Sokka responds, deciding to just stare at Hakoda and Hiroyuki knowing that his wife was currently glaring at him for not telling her about the meeting or the fact Yue would be having that lesson in general.

"Anyways. I understand that its needed for procreation and all but I mean it just seems like there are way more consequences than benefits. I mean like sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. So I don't understand why so many people engage in that activity," Yue explains further.

Sokka lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. To be honest he was worried Yue was seeing a boy and was thinking about doing those kind of things but luckily his Yue was just curious and could only really see the topic she was talking about in an objective viewpoint.

"Yeah. It feels good that's why so many people are willing to chance the consequences you were talking about," Sokka answers.

Sokka wasn't afraid to answer his daughter's question now that he was sure there was no boys involved and just purely his daughter's curiosity. Sokka really should have known Yue would only see the subject in an objective light considering he was often that way about stuff like this when he was younger. It only became more real to him when he could actually put feelings and opinions behind what he knew, the topic of sex included.

Sokka looks over at his wife and tries to hold back his laughter when he notices Suki trying to hide her flushed face.

"Don't you agree, Suki? She's hoping for as many opinions as possible here," Sokka asks teasingly.

"Yeah I agree," Suki manages to squeaking out before deciding to hide her face behind her cup as she drank more tea.

"Luli says that she's only ever heard of people who love each other having sex though. Since you two love each other, does that mean you have sex often?" Yue asks innocently. Suki chokes on her tea for the second time that afternoon while Sokka can no longer keep silent and ends up laughing at how funny the current situation was. Sokka considers honestly answering his daughter's question when his youngest daughter suddenly yells from upstairs.

"Yue! Can you help me find those brown boots I wore to my lessons last time! I can't find them because you cleaned our room!," Kyoshi yells. The girl was notorious for only being able to find her stuff when her room was messy, just like her father. Suki generally wouldn't scold her for it though considering Kyoshi could literally tell you exactly were anything was when her room was a mess but couldn't finding next to anything when it was clean. That being said Kyoshi had to share a bedroom with her older sister, who was a bit of a clean freak much like their mother, so it was only natural that she wouldn't know where Yue put her stuff at.

"Okay, one second," Yue sets her cup down, thanks her parents for the answer to her initial question, and runs upstairs, "I'm pretty sure I put them in the closet so I really don't know how you can't find them."

Suki lets out a sigh of relief while Sokka continues to laugh. He takes a seat beside his wife, chuckling harder when she begins to rub her temples.

"Damn you for passing on your curiosity to that child," Suki mumbles teasingly.

"If I recall, it was passed down to all of our children and you've always been just as curious. If anything we should be happy she has my curiosity and not yours," Sokka jokes, kissing his wife quickly on the lips. While Sokka tended to fulfill his curiosity with simply asking questions and getting answer, Suki was more likely to fulfill hers through experiences. Suki glares at him again before eventually cracking a smile when Sokka cannot seem to stop chuckling over what just happened.

"Yeah, thank Kyoshi she doesn't have my curiosity. Some boy would have ended up dead by your hands."

* * *

**Sorry it took so long. I started writing two other chapters but got stuck on them then finally decided just to completely write this one since I already knew how I wanted to do it. Anyways I figured the "birds and the bees" talk is always uncomfortable for the kids (at least it was for me, especially since my mom wasn't uncomfortable with teaching me the subject...) to hear so might as well switch up the situation since I honestly don't think the Sukka kids are normal.**

**Anyways I'm not sure which chapter I will post next. It may be one of the two chapters I got stuck on or I might go ahead and talking about what happened with Hiroyuki and Suki (since I mentioned that some trouble happened with them).**

**So, I hope you enjoyed and leave a comment if you would like~**


	21. Breathe

**Sorry it took so long. I got a job over the summer and its been pretty tiring. Anyways this one is sadder than usual but please enjoy.**

* * *

Suki's water broke way earlier than it was supposed to. She was barely six months along and, since there had been signs of possible complications with her pregnancy earlier on, the doctors were hoping that she wouldn't have to give birth before she was at least seven or eight months along.

_"We're a bit worried given the fact that your wife has been having fevers and hasn't been able to keep any food down despite being two months along with her pregnancy. The child gets nutrients from the mother's body so, even if she isn't getting any, the child will take what nutrients she does have. For now let's try changing up her diet so that she can get the nutrients the child needs. She may be able to hold down liquids better than solids so let's try that first. They should both be find as long as the fevers stop soon and we find a way to help her keep her food down."_

But neither of them happened. If anything, the fevers came more frequently and her weight dropped even more.

"_It's strange that she would be fine the first two pregnancies but then be doing so badly with this one."_

Suki's mother died during childbirth and apparently so had her grandmother. Sokka just hoped that dying during childbirth wouldn't also happen to his wife.

_"At this rate, I'm not so sure if she will survive this…. We're hoping at best the child will but typically women with the symptoms don't survive due to fevers and blood loss and they end up having their child too early. The child won't be fully developed enough to come into this world if it is delivered too early. If she makes it to seven or eight months hopefully the child will be developed enough to be fine. Unfortunately, all we get do is pray to the spirits that your wife will survive. We should hope she isn't having a fever when she gives birth. That could make or break the outcome."_

Just a one month difference. Seems like their fourth child was either really eager to get out or Suki's body was eager to get them out. Either way Sokka's wife was currently in labor and surrounded by many physicians at their house in the suburbs. Sokka can't help but remember, as he watches the swarm of doctors hover around her as she lies on the couple's bed, that Suki wanted to give birth in the hospital in Republic City but there was no way she would have been able to make it there.

"Mama?" Sokka turns around to find his three kids staring confused at the medics encircling their mother.

"It's okay you guys. Your little sibling's coming soon okay," Sokka walks over to them, kneels down, and pulls them into a hug.

Suki suddenly screams causing all four of them to jump. The twins look over their father's shoulder to see what is happening to their mom while Yue stares at her father. Despite being five when her twin siblings were born, she could remember that her mother never screamed when she was having them. At most she let out strangled noises and groans but never did she scream. Because of this, Yue couldn't help but mouth a question to her dad, "Will she be okay?"

Sokka blinks, unsure of how to answer his daughter's question. Despite being seven, Yue was quick to pick up on things, even in a situation like this.

"Hopefully," Sokka mouths back.

Another twelve hours went by, filled with Suki screaming and trying her best to deliver her fourth child. If Sokka had had any hopes of his wife or child coming out of this situation okay, his hopes were slowly fading. Even when Suki delivered the twins, it only took her six hours and there wasn't nearly as much blood as there was now.

"We need more wet rags now! She has a fever!" one of the doctors yell.

"Shit," Sokka curses, recalling that her having a fever will only make the situation worse.

"She's losing too much blood."

"Suki," Sokka can't help but whisper her name. Despite being told to stand in the hallway, Sokka leaves Yue in charge of the twins and walks back into the bedroom, towards his wife.

"Sir, we need you to stand in the hallway."

"I'm staying beside my wife," Sokka tells the medic.

"But sir…."

Sokka ignores the physican and sits down on the edge of the bed beside his wife. Suki notices him right away and gives him a weak smile. Sokka takes one of her hands gently.

"Holding up okay, my precious warrior?" Sokka asks despite knowing she wasn't doing too well.

"I've been better," Suki responds in a strained voice.

Sokka frowns softly, feeling tears about to fall from his eyes. Suki frowns softly at her husband's reaction.

"We'll need new sheets once this is over," Suki tells him, her voice still strained as she tries to push.

Sokka smiles softly, happy that his wife was already making plans for after this despite the chance that she might not make it to next week.

"Yeah, I guess so. Do you still want the ones we saw at the market a while ago?"

"That was like a year ago. They're probably not there anymore, silly. Are you planning to go back in time just to get those sheets?"

"Well, anything for you," Sokka smiles again, happy to hear his wife joking with him. He finds himself remembering other times when Suki joked with him like this.

Suki suddenly screams again, bring Sokka back to reality.

"Did we ever decide on a name?" Suki asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I thought we did. Last week, right?"

"I remember tossing names back and forth but I don't remember actually -," Suki's sentence is broken off by another scream.

"We see the head! Just a bit more Miss Suki!," one of the doctors calls out.

"I feel dizzy…." Suki whispers, causing Sokka to panic.

"Just a bit longer, my love…." Sokka tells her, cupping her cheek gently with his free hand.

"Okay."

"Push! Don't forget your breathing exercises!," one of the doctors reminds Suki.

Several more minutes passed before Suki and Sokka's son was finally out. The medics wrap the child up and begin doing a physical check-up immediately, leaving Sokka with Suki. Sokka and Suki wait patiently hoping to hear the same hollering that occurred after each of their other children were born but it doesn't come.

"He's not breathing!"

Both Suki and Sokka turn towards the doctors in panic. Sokka feels his heart drop immediately. He turns towards Suki and, without having to meet her eyes, he knows she feels the same way. Despite not facing him, Sokka could tell there were tears falling down her cheeks.

Though only two minutes had passed, it felt like hours before the couple finally heard crying.

"Continue the rest of the physical examination!"

Suki smiles weakly before mouthing, "go check on him, please," to Sokka. Sokka gets up quickly about to do as she suggested before turning to look at his wife completely. She didn't look like she was doing so well. Her breathing was shallow, she was sweating profusely, her skin was paler than usual and had a bluish tinge to it, and she couldn't seem to keep her eyes open.

"Suki…?" Suki doesn't respond, she only motions for her husband to go see his newborn child. Sokka hesitates but does as she says after getting one of the doctors to keep an eye on her.

"Since he was born early, he's a lot smaller than he should be. We'll have to keep an eye on him for a while but right now he's fine. For now let's get him cleaned up," a physician suggests.

Sokka nods in understanding. Immediately going to get a basin to fill up with water. Sokka returns quickly and takes his newborn son from the doctors. Sokka turns around, about to go bathe the newborn, before asking, "How is she doing?" His answer is met with silence until another doctor decides to speak up.

"We are doing the best we can, sir."

Despite not being fully satisfied with this answer, Sokka decides to just focus on cleaning up his son for now. Sokka bathes him gently, cooing to the child every once in a while and smiling softly whenever the child squirms away from towel Sokka was using to wash him.

"It's okay. Daddy just needs to wash you up and then we can go see your siblings and…," Sokka can't seem to finish his sentence when he recalls the condition his wife was in before he left to clean his newborn son.

"Her pulse is getting too weak!" Sokka hears suddenly. It had been a couple of minutes since he started washing his child and since he had left Suki.

"No…" Sokka whispers softly.

"Miss Suki, we need you to try to keep yourself awake! Miss Suki!," one of the doctors calls out to Sokka's wife.

"Dammit, she's losing consciousness! We need to act quickly!," the head medic commands.

Sokka gently removes the newborn from the basin filled with water and wraps him in a towel in order to dry him off. The little boy blinks a couple of times before smiling softly.

"You're happy now that you aren't getting bathed, huh?" Sokka responds, giving his son a kiss on his tiny hand causing the newborn to smile again. "I think the name your mommy picked for you will definitely fit. Don't you agree, Hiroyuki?"

"Her pulse is gone! She isn't breathing!," one of the physicians report

"We still have time, hurry!," the head medic responds.

As if he knew what was happening with his mother, Hiroyuki starts crying again.

"I know, I know. It's okay, she's a fighter." Sokka whispers, trying to calm down his son.

Despite having said that, Sokka can't help but think that the love of his life might not be coming back to him. Sokka suddenly finds himself thinking about losing his first love, Yue. "I can't lose her too," Sokka can't help but think. He makes the mistake of looking over at his wife, yet again surrounded by doctors. He manages to get a glimpse of her stilled body. For a second, Sokka lets himself blissfully believe that she is just asleep, that she will wake up any second, but her chest isn't rising and falling as it normally does. It's still.

"Suki," Sokka whispers again.

Suki suddenly gasps, her eyes snapping open. She coughs uncontrollably and only stops in order to try to suck down as much air as possible.

"Miss Suki. Look at me. We are going to do more breathing exercises to get your breathing back to normal, okay? Inhale, Exhale. Inhale, Exhale."

"See, Hiroyuki. She's a fighter."

* * *

After the doctors were sure Suki would be fine. Yue, Kyoshi, and Hakoda were allowed to come into the bedroom and see her. Suki gets encased in hugs immediately upon them entering the room, causing the woman to laugh.

"Are you okay, mommy?," her five year old twins ask in unison, much to their annoyance. After giggling at the twins fighting over who was copying whom, Suki answers their question with a quick yes and a kiss on their foreheads.

Sokka walks over to the bed quietly with Hiroyuki, catching the attention of everyone currently surrounding the bed. Sokka sits on the side of the bed, handing the baby over to Suki carefully. The kids look at their new brother in adoration, or at least as close to adoration as three children can be.

"He's so cute!" Kyoshi exclaims.

"Really? He just looks squishy to me," Hakoda responds, causing Sokka and Suki to burst out laughing at Hakoda's resemblance to his father.

"What's his name, daddy?" Yue asks. Suki turns her attention towards Sokka, wondering if he had already decided.

"Hiroyuki."

Suki and the three kids smile before turning their attention back to the newborn.

"Hello Hiroyuki. I'm your older sister Yue!" Yue introduces herself to her new baby brother despite knowing the newborn doesn't understand her.

Sokka can't help but snicker at his daughter formally introducing herself to the newest addition to the family. It was becoming obvious that Sokka had let that girl tag along to too many of the galas he had attended. Formally introducing herself seemed to be slowly becoming second nature to her.

"Oh oh oh. My turn!" Kyoshi excitedly yells, "I'm your older sister, Kyoshi. It's your turn Koda!"

"But you just told him my name!"

"I said Koda, not Hakoda!"

"_Now_ you just told him my name!"

Suki lifts up an eyebrow at the current exchange happening between the twins while Sokka can't help but laugh. Everyone was acting like they normally did. Normal. Everything was back to normal. Sokka looks at his wife holding their newborn son and finally lets himself relax. Everything was going be okay. Sure there might be more problems further down the road but they will get taken care of later when they arises. For now, Sokka's just happy that they're both breathing.

* * *

**So yeah. I chose the name Hiroyuki both because it was pretty and because of its meaning. "Hiro" means "wide or broad" while "yuki" means "happiness or blessing". Obviously, Hiroyuki surviving to begin with was the blessing and the happiness part just kind of came in with Hiroyuki smiling so much at Sokka after getting bathed.**

**Anyways, hope you enjoyed. I'll try to write something a bit happier next time. Leave comments if you would like.**


	22. Stubborn

**Long time no see. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I had something written but then decided that I wasn't satisfied with it yet so I ended up writing something else in the meantime. Anyways, enjoy~.**

* * *

Sokka had been pretty busy today: cutting wood for the fire, repairing the roof of his girlfriend's house on Kyoshi Island, and fixing one of her chairs at the kitchen table. Upon finishing with the chair, Sokka sits down in it in order to see if it is still wobbly. Once sure it wasn't broken anymore, he relaxed a bit, fanning himself lightly with this hand due to the heat of summer practically baking him alive in the house. He'd already taken his shirt off earlier before cutting wood - both in hopes of impressing his girlfriend and in order to cool down - so there wasn't much more he could do in order to cool down. He jumps a bit when a cup of water is suddenly set down in front of him.

"Sorry for making you do so much despite just getting here," Suki apologizes, pulling out one of her fans in order to cool down her boyfriend. Sokka had arrived late last night so he hadn't even been around long before being asked to help with some stuff around the house. "I would have handled them when I got back."

"It's no problem. You managed to come back from work and do the chores before I even finished, yet you think you're making me do too much. You rarely ask me for help to begin with so if anything, do you need me to do anything else?"

"Not that I know of," Suki says, trying to see if there was anything else around the house that needed to be done. Not seeing anything that needed immediate attention, she decides to just sit down in a chair adjacent from Sokka. "The stuff I gave you to do takes quite a while so of course I would finish a bit faster."

"We should really split the chores, you know," Sokka suggests, looking at Suki to gage her reaction. She lifts up an eyebrow at his idea. It wasn't the first time he had brought up the notion of splitting the chores but Suki still didn't see the point in him continuing to bring it up.

"It's okay. I can do them."

"I know you prefer doing everything yourself but it would take less time if you let me do some too."

"Seriously. I can do them."

"Going to work and then having to come back and do chores is a bit much though, don't you think? You didn't even have time to switch out of your uniform or wash up. Plus, it's not like I have anything else to do while you're at work."

"Maybe, but-"

"Do I just not do the chores well enough? I only screwed up washing clothes once and now I'm not allowed to do anything else? I can just not do laundry, you know."

"There aren't that many chores to do around the house to begin with, so we really don't need to split them."

Sokka sighs, knowing he probably wouldn't be able to talk his stubborn girlfriend into splitting the chores anytime soon.

"Well can you at least let me do_ something_ for you every once in a while. You always have to do everything yourself," Sokka mutters.

"What do you mean?"

"Literally every single time we go on a date you never let me pay for your meals."

"I have money, so there's no need for you to waste yours."

"Spending my money on you is never a waste."

Suki rolls her eyes at his cheesy comment. "If that's your only support-"

"It's not. You know how you can't reach the top shelf of the cupboard but keep putting stuff up there? You literally seem to rather climb up on the counters and get to the top shelf rather than just ask me to get stuff. And then you refuse to let me help you whenever you are carrying too much stuff or something heavy. And-"

"I really don't feel like being trapped by your expectations of what a woman should allow a man to do for her…," Suki sighs.

Sokka frowns immediately her comment. It wasn't like he was trying to be sexist. He was simply giving examples.

"Then there was that time you were super sick and you refused to let me go get you medicine or cook you food or do the chores or draw you a bath. You were seriously sick but you still refused to let me help you with anything that needed to be done. You just _had_ to do them yourself," Sokka states. He is quite sure that this example isn't anywhere near sexist and that he is generally proving his point of just how extreme Suki's tendency to do stuff on her own is.

Sokka crosses his arms and waits for Suki to respond again.

"…I guess you have a point…," Suki admits reluctantly. Sokka smirks.

"Does that mean-"

"Nope. Doesn't change a thing."

"Stubborn woman…."

"Sorry. I really do appreciate that you want to help and all. I guess I'm just used to doing everything myself since that's sort of how it's always been for me anyways."

Sokka smiles softly and Suki returns his smile before giving him a peck on the lips.

"Can you at least give me two chores?" Sokka asks, killing the mood.

"Sokka.…"

"What? I can wash dishes and cook."

"Sokka."

"One and half chores?"

"How the hell are you going to do half of a chore?"

"We can take turns cooking. We both do it half of the time so its half of a chore."

"If I say yes, can we just be done with this conversation?"

"Maybe."

"Then my answer is a maybe, too."

"Fine. How about just washing dishes?"

"Hmmmm...," Suki murmurs. At this point she would agree to anything in order to end this tiresome conversation, "Fine. You can wash dishes, I guess."

Sokka smiles, happy to have reached a compromise. "While we're at it! I'm paying for dinner tomorrow when we go out on our date."

"Um, no."

"...Stubborn woman," Sokka mutters.

"You know you love me,"Suki retorts, placing a kiss on her boyfriend's cheek.

* * *

**So yeah. I wanted to do many things with this piece I guess. Namely showing that Sukka isn't a perfect couple and they argue at times but that they generally can work through it. I also was hoping that this chapter would show how much they have grown since their argument didn't last very long and didn't involve raising voices or yelling like there was in "Falling Out". I also wanted to showcase another part of Suki's personality that I think she has. Sorry that it is so short~**

**Leave comments if you would like.**


	23. Nicknames

**Sorry that this is so short! I figured I should make a story behind the nicknames I gave Sokka and Suki in "Invention". It's nothing super special though. If anything I'm just hoping this is still T+. Anyways, enjoy~**

* * *

Suki and Sokka break apart for air only resume their make out session a few seconds later. Sokka's hands were already wondering over Suki's body, hoping for more. Suki breaks away from her boyfriend before stopping his hands and bringing them up to her cheeks.

"I need to go to work, darling. We can do that later if you want to," Suki states, giving her boyfriend an apologetic look. Sokka pouts before peppering kisses down his lover's neck.

"Can't you…take off for today and… let Jia…take care of everything. It's just… a normal… training day, right?" Sokka says in between kisses.

Suki gets cut off by Sokka suddenly pressing his lips to hers again. Sokka lets his tongue touch Suki's lips gently, asking for entrance. She allows it without any second thoughts. Sokka pulls away slowly after a few minutes, tugging her bottom lip gently as he breaks away.

"I guess I could skip work for today….," Suki concedes, blushes gently. Sokka smirks, removing his hands from her cheeks and letting them cup the cheeks further south on Suki's body that Sokka admittedly enjoyed touching a lot.

"Come here, my Sexy Southern Wolf," Suki whispers, in her boyfriend's ear. Sokka smirks immediately.

"That's a new one. I like it. You're getting better at this whole nickname thing," Sokka approves before allowing his hands to slip underneath the hem of girlfriend's uniform.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get out of those damned clothes. They're in my way."

* * *

They probably looked a hot mess right now. Suki was quite sure a good majority of her Kyoshi Warrior makeup had ended up on her boyfriend's face and other various parts of his body. Nonetheless, Suki couldn't help but smile lovingly at her boyfriend as she cuddles a little closer to him in her bed. Sokka smiles when she moves closer and wraps an arm around her, letting his hand run through her hair a couple of times before settling down around her shoulder.

"Just so you know, I can't skip tomorrow," Suki tells her boyfriend playfully. Sokka chuckles.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself. You shouldn't be all that surprised by now my Kyoshian rose. It's nothing particularly new."

Suki giggles before realizing what he had just called her.

"Er…what did you just call me?"

"Hm? Oh. My Kyoshian rose. Like it? You gave me a new nickname so I decided to give you a new one too! Do you not like it?"

"I enjoy the thought but…." Suki trails off. She wasn't so sure about being compared to a flower. Flowers were so pure and fragile and beautiful and so. It didn't exactly match her.

"I chose rose for a reason you know, those things are pretty damn dangerous if you aren't careful and they seem way more...I don't know...elegant than normal flowers. That being said they are my favorite and the ones I find to be the most beautiful," Sokka explains, after noticing the look on Suki's face. Suki blushes in response to his explanation causing Sokka to smile, happy that she doesn't seem to dislike her new nickname.

"I love you, my Kyoshian rose."

"I love you more, my Sexy Southern Wolf."


	24. Hot

**Decided to look up how to play Pai Sho and have Sukka play it! That game is super complicated so I didn't bother to mention all of the game possibilities. Don't worry if you don't know how to play, Sokka will explain the main points.**

**;)**

**Hopefully T+**

**Enjoy~**

* * *

Just because the word "fire" was in the name, didn't mean the Fire Nation needed to be so damn hot during the summer or at least that's what Sokka was thinking as he sat in the inn room he was sharing with Suki.

The two of them were visiting the Fire Nation at the suggestion of Zuko. There would be many parades and parties happening in celebration of Zuko being on the thrown for a full year and the first anniversary of the end of the 100 years' war. None of them would be starting until tomorrow though, so for the time being Sokka and Suki decided to stay in their room and hangout.

They'd gone through most of their standard stay-at-home activities: talking and sparring, the latter getting cut short due to it being too hot. They were getting bored and the day only seemed like it was getting hotter by the minute.

"Wanna play Pai Sho?" Sokka asks, turning his head to face her. The two of them were sprawled out on the floor of their inn room's sleeping area trying to cool down as much as possible. Both of them had considered taking some clothes off multiple times by that point but hadn't bothered to do so yet.

"Sure. Which way are we playing? Fast or Slow? Old or New?" Suki asks, sitting up so that she can go get the Pai Sho board and tiles they brought with them.

"Slow and lets just go with the old way," Sokka suggests. Both Sokka and Suki were used to playing the older and newer versions of Pai Sho, but Sokka was quite used to playing the game slowly, having played with General Iroh and Master Piandao on many occassions. Suki, on the other hand, was used to the more fast paced version of the game. Sokka and Suki had played together on other occasions but Suki generally grew bored whenever they played slowly. Either way the rules were still the same: get the most points by the end and you win.

"I'm going to need you to spice it up a bit if we play that way then," Suki says after returning to where Sokka was sprawled out, board and pieces in hand.

"Hm…strip Pai Sho?" Sokka suggests, earning him a look from Suki, "What? You said to spice it up. Plus it will help us cool down."

"Why not just make the loser figure out a way to cool us both down? Or we can go out to that beach that's nearby and figure out a punishment for the loser."

"We could do both."

"Fine. Stripping and a punishment. Dear Kyoshi, we must be bored."

Sokka chuckles before suggesting that each of them get five minutes to strategize and that they will play on the table that is in the kitchen area of their inn room. Suki agrees and quickly claims the sleeping area for her strategizing space. She playfully rolls her boyfriend, who was still lying down, into the kitchen area before returning to the sleeping area and pulling out a folding screen to separated the two rooms. Sokka lifts up an eyebrow, wondering why his girlfriend decided to pullout the folding screen when all they were doing was strategizing. He decides not to question her antics and to just focus on his plan.

Sokka sighs. He could try to come up with a plan all he wanted but Suki was just as unpredictable when playing Pai Sho as she was in life in general. Sokka finds himself deciding to just make sure he remembers all of the rules so that his girlfriend can't suddenly claim that something he did is or something she did isn't against the rules.

Pai Sho is mostly a game of strategy. Create harmonies with the flower tiles and avoid disharmonies. Get the most points by the end and you win. In order to create a harmony, two flower tiles that have the ability to be in harmony with each other must be placed close together. Each round that those harmonies stay together earns the player a point. Natural harmonies can be created if a red flower that is on a red space on the board is in harmony with a white flower on a white space. The player earns two points for natural harmonies. Disharmonies happen when an opponent's disharmony tile is placed near a player's harmony tiles. Players lose a point each turn the disharmony tile is around one of their harmonies and loses two points if there is a disharmony tile around a natural harmony. Landing on a tile using a tile it is in disharmony with will remove that tile from the board. That tile will be put into "the pot" and the player that eliminated that tile will get a point for each tile they eliminate. Landing on a non-flower tile will get non-flower tile out but it also eliminates the tile that lands on the non-flower tile. Any tile can get a non-flower tile out. Special flower tiles have special abilities that can come in handy if played correctly. Each tile has a specific starting point and a specific range of mobility. The game ends if "the pot" is captured by making a chain of harmonies around the center of the board, by having only three harmony tiles - since that isn't enough tiles to create the chain needed to capture the pot -, if a certain number of points are reached, or by one of the players forfeits.

Sokka looks over towards the screen and notices Suki hasn't said anything about five minutes having passed so he decides to think a bit more about what to do as he plays. Suki tended to be impatient when it comes to Pai Sho so she was more likely to focus on creating disharmonies with his tiles than creating harmonies with hers. Sokka also didn't have to worry about her doing anything that would get her more than one point at a time, like special abilities or natural harmonies. Sokka tended to focus on creating harmonies with his tiles but since the amount of tiles remaining on the board gets subtracted from the players score once the game ends, keeping all of his tiles on the board isn't a very good idea either. Despite Suki's rashness when it came to Pai Sho, her strategy tended to work since she would practically corner people's harmonies and rack up points from being near them but could also sacrifice enough of her tiles to not make a dent in her points.

Sokka sighs again.

After Sokka is quite sure five minutes have passed, he sits down at the table and waits for his girlfriend.

"Babe, it's been five minutes. Bring the board and pieces with you," Sokka says.

"Could you say that a bit more politely?" Suki asks, a tinge of annoyance in her voice.

"Can you please bring the board and pieces with you," Sokka tries again, rolling his eyes at his girlfriend's nitpicking.

The folding screen door is pushed back slowly and Sokka feels like all the blood in his body is rushing to one specific area when he sees her walk out from the sleeping area. Suki had changed her clothes during the last five minutes. She had originally been wearing a tunic and pants but had apparently decided to change into a shirt that showed off a good amount of her torso with a neck line that dipped low enough for some cleavage to be seen and some short shorts that definitely worked well with her lower body.

Suki sets down the board and pieces nonchalantly before mentioning something about her fans. Sokka couldn't hear her, seeing as he was too busy staring at her swaying hips as she walked away from the table and back into the sleeping area. She comes back quickly with one of her fans and began to fan herself hoping to cool down a bit.

"Uh…Pai Sho," Sokka states, still unable to focus on anything but his girlfriend.

Suki laughs. She wasn't expecting her strategy to work so well already. She figured that, despite it being his idea, Sokka would get distracted if they decided to strip as they lost pieces. Suki just figured changing her clothes would distract him from the start rather than give him time to think clearly from the very beginning. Suki had just as likely of a chance of winning as Sokka did and, though it wasn't her style to win through seduction and batting her eyelashes, she wanted to make certain she won for sure so she wouldn't have to do a punishment of Sokka's choice when they got to the beach. Sokka had a tendency to make her do extremely weird and/or embarrassing things. Last time they did a game with a punishment and she lost, she ended up going skinny dipping and walking along the shore naked for a couple of minutes. She is still absolutely sure that there were other people there watching.

Suki sets out the board and hands Sokka his 54 tiles. Both of them set their pieces aside before starting.

"Ladies first," Sokka prompts. Usually players flip a coin to see who either moves first or decides which tile to place on the board first but Sokka just decides to let Suki start off the game.

"How kind of you," Suki smirks, sarcasm dripping from her voice a little," I think I'll take you up on that offer."

Suki chooses her first three starting tiles to put on the board first, Sokka quickly places the same tiles on the board - mirroring where she put her own pieces - before choosing his first three tiles and waiting for her to place the same ones on the board, mirroring the positions of his tiles as well. The six beginning pieces in place, the game officially starts.

They take turns placing tiles on the board before finally deciding to start moving their tiles. After a while, Suki has to reach over the board in order to move her pieces correctly - or at least that's what Sokka believes is her reason for leaning over and flashing cleavage at him during her turns. Sokka pinches his cheek, trying to focus on the game. He didn't want to receive whatever punishment Suki was planning to give him, especially since he embarrassed the hell out of her during the last time he won a game with a punishment on the line. Sokka finds himself reciting the harmonies and disharmonies of the tiles trying to focus.

_Jasmines, Lilies, and White Jades are all white flower tiles._

_Jasmines form harmonies with Lilies and Rhododendrons but form disharmony with Roses._

_Lilies form harmonies with Jasmines and White Jades but form disharmony with Chrysanthemum._

_White Jades form harmonies with Lilies and Roses but form disharmony with Rhododendrons._

Suki pulls out her fan again and starts fanning herself. At first Sokka thinks nothing of it but Suki suddenly decides that she needs to cool down her chest and decides to pull the collar of her shirt forward while she fans down inside her shirt. Sokka gulps and tries to take his mind of his girlfriend's actions again.

_Roses, Chrysanthemums, and Rhododendrons are all red flower tiles._

_Roses form harmonies with White Jades and Chrysanthemums but form disharmony with Jasmines._

_Chrysanthemums form harmonies with Roses and Rhododendrons but form disharmony with Lilies._

_Rhododendrons form harmonies with Chrysanthemums and Jasmines but form disharmony with White Jades._

Suki manages to eliminate some of his tiles while he isn't paying attention.

"Dammit," Sokka mutters under his breathe. Suki just smiles before prompting him to take off an article of clothing. Sokka frowns. He should have put his shoes back on but it was too late now. He decides to just go ahead and take off his shirt, hoping that maybe it will help him both cool down and distract Suki the same way her clothing choice was distracting him.

Sokka gives the board a once over before smirking. He quickly eliminates one of Suki's tiles at the cost of one of his non-flowering tiles. Sokka prompts Suki to take off a piece of clothing this time earning him a pout from his girlfriend.

"You already have more clothes than I do so don't try to cutely pout your way out of not stripping," Sokka responds.

"Since when did I have more clothes?"

"You have chest bindings."

"Who said I had them on?"

Sokka just stares at her for a couple of seconds, wondering if she was telling the truth. As if knowing that Sokka doubted her statement, Suki decides to just remove her shirt as compensation for losing a tile. She removes it quickly and tosses her shirt to the side, giggling softly at her boyfriend's reaction to the fact that she indeed didn't have her chest bindings on. Suki fans herself nonchalantly waiting for her boyfriend to put his focus back on the game rather than on her toplessness. After a few moments pass, Suki realizes the Water Tribesman probably won't be able to focus unless she helps him a bit.

"It's your turn, darling," Suki states, her voice startling Sokka out of his reverie, "Also the stripping part of the game won't last very long if we strip after every tile we lose. How about every fifteen tiles?"

"O-okay," Sokka stutters, still trying to calm down. Sokka clears his throat, trying to revert his attention back to the game only for his eyes to shift back to his girlfriend's exposed chest.

"Need me to put my shirt back on?"

"No, no I'm good," Sokka says, randomly moving a tile in order to get the game moving forward again.

"Are you sure about that?" Suki asks, quickly eliminating the tile Sokka that just moved, using one of her non-flower tiles that had been nearby. Sokka can't help but think that the stripping idea was both one of his best and worse ideas he has ever had. Suki had definitely thought this through. He was totally screwed.

* * *

Sokka and Suki walk up to the beach with a bag full of snacks and some beach gear. It was pretty crowded despite how hot it was. Sokka had thought more people would be floating in the ocean trying to cool down but a lot of people had apparently chosen to just tan, build sand castles, or play volleyball. The couple finds a spot quickly in the sand to lay down their towels. The two of them sit down, taking the next couple of minutes to just watching all of the people run around for a couple of minutes.

"Want ice cream?" Suki asks Sokka, breaking the silence between them.

"Sure!" Sokka smiles, watching Suki as she gets up and leaves.

Sokka continues people watching as he waits for his girlfriend to return with frozen treats. He sighs, wondering what was taking her so long. At least fifteen minutes must have passed by now. Sokka snaps out of his thoughts when he hears giggling to the right of him. He immediately spots two girls wearing bikinis staring at him. The two girls look away guiltily at being caught staring at the water tribesman. Sokka lifts an eyebrow at the pair, wondering what they could possibly be thinking. The two girls whisper for a couple of seconds before one of them turns back to Sokka and waves. He waves back without thinking, still not exactly understanding what they were doing. Girls were complicated. Sokka finds himself watching the girls for a couple of seconds without really meaning to.

Sokka jumps when an ice cream cone suddenly appears in front of his face. He turns around to see his girlfriend with slightly miffed expression on her face. Sokka takes the ice cream cone before coaxing his girlfriend to sit beside him on his towel. Rather than listen to him, Suki takes a seat on her own towel, moving a couple of inches away from Sokka. She was currently annoyed with him and he had no clue why.

"Suki...?" Sokka asks, his confusion made obvious with the tone of his voice. She doesn't respond, just eats her ice cream. Sokka frowns before look up at the pair of girls again, who were now whispering furiously and staring at Suki. Sokka thinks for a couple of seconds before realization hits him.

"Baby, I just waved 'hi' to them that's all I did," Sokka says as he gets up from his spot to sit down right next to Suki. Suki still refuses to give anything other than a tiny "hmph" as her response. Sokka sighs before grabbing Suki's chin with his free hand and pressing his lips to hers. Suki doesn't kiss back at first but eventually gives in, to Sokka's relief. Sokka hears the girls walk away as he deepens his kiss with Suki. Suki pulls away first.

"You're ice cream is going to melt," Suki whispers, as she tries to calm down her reddening cheeks.

"That's fine. Are you still annoyed?"

"No... Do you prefer girls that-," Suki begins only to be cut off by a kiss from Sokka.

"You're the most gorgeous girl I've ever seen," Sokka states.

"You were staring at them pretty hard...," Suki continues.

"Because of their bikinis," Sokka admits, earning him a glare from his lover, "Not for that reason. I was just thinking that I wish you would have worn a bikini instead of a one piece swimsuit..."

"You know that's not really my style though...," Suki comments.

"Yeah. I know. I was just thinking you would look incredible in one...actually stick with your one pieces. I don't need other men staring at you any more than they already do," Sokka explains. Suki laughs happily before giving Sokka a kiss.

"Now eat your ice cream already! Its dripping all over the place!"

* * *

After finishing their icecream, Suki and Sokka hang out on the beach, playing in the sand and the water for a couple of hours. The water definitely cooled them down both temperature wise and emotionally. They had spent the last several minutes standing in the ocean and making out before deciding that they should call it a day. Despite having decided on this, neither one of them move, they just smiled at each other. Suki kisses Sokka's lips softly before letting her hands wonder down towards his swimming trunks. Sokka lets out a low groan when he feels his girlfriend's hand brush over a certain area of his lower body. Suki giggles, quite happy about both is verbal and physical response to her touches. Sokka doesn't think twice when his girlfriend begins to pull his trunks down and definitely doesn't bother to question her when she removes his trunks altogether at least not until she suddenly starts swimming back towards shore with them.

"S-suki!?" Sokka yells, when it suddenly clicks that his girlfriend wasn't planning on giving his trunks back or calming down rushing of blood that had gone south thanks to her touches.

"Have fun getting back to the inn!" Suki shouts back.

"WHAT?!"

"Did you already forget about the fact that you still had to be punished for losing the Pai Sho game?"

"S-suki! Don't you think this is a bit much?"

"You made me go skinny dipping when people were still around!"

"I'm really sure that no one was around. Seriously though. Baby, come back with my trunks!"

Suki just smiles sweetly before shouting, "If you get back to the inn quickly, we might get to resume the fun we were having a minute ago! Also you might wanna make sure its not hard anymore before you go back on to the shore."

Sokka blushes deeply. Seems like making his girlfriend go skinny dipping was both a good idea and a bad idea. She wouldn't have had this idea if he hadn't made her go skinny dipping to begin with but the view he got that night definitely made it a good idea.

Sokka sighs, trying to think of a quick escape plan. Sokka had to admit he was a bit more worried about getting to the inn quick enough for his girlfriend to still be interested in the activity she had started just a minute ago than he was about being seen by the people on shore. Sokka looks at the shore and notices that Suki was packing up all of their stuff, meaning he wouldn't be allowed to use any of it to cover up. Suki notices Sokka staring at her and blows him a couple of kisses before walking back towards the inn.

Spirits, that woman was evil sometimes, but Sokka definitely had to admit that he found her extremely hot when she was that way.

* * *

**Side notes: The older and newer forms of Pai Sho are similar in that players must create harmonies to get points and win but the way you get harmonies and which tiles are used to get harmonies are different. Also, the older form uses 54 tiles per player while the newer form uses 22 tiles per player. There aren't any red or white flower tiles in the newer version.**

**I kind mixed multiple things that I wanted to to have Sukka doing including: Pai Sho, the beach, getting jealous, and then mainly showing off another side of Suki's personality that I think she has. **

**I think Suki is sometimes unintentionally mean to Sokka whether that is by torturing him with her looks or trying to teach him a lesson for staring at other girls and making her go skinny dipping.**

**I feel like a I've been showing not particularly positive sides of Suki's personality so I'll try to show her good side a bit more in the next chapters.**

**Anyways. I hope you enjoyed.**

**Leave a comment if you want~**


	25. Favorite Dish

"Sokka."

Sokka looked up from the bag he had been packing to look at his girlfriend, who was also packing her bags. He would be heading off to Omashu for a little while to help out Aang while she would be heading to the Fire Nation with her warriors, yet again, to help out Zuko. The two of them wouldn't see each other for at least a month and a half so they already made plans take a vacation and to meet up with each other in Sokka's apartment in Ba Sing Sae once they finished their individual jobs, even if they finished at different times.

"What's up, darling?" Sokka replied.

"What's your favorite dish to eat?"

Sokka lifts up an eyebrow at the randomness of her question and the fact that she was asking so nonchalantly while continuing to pack her bags.

"Favorite dish? In general or from the Southern Water Tribe?"

"Either is fine."

"Um…stewed sea prunes probably," Sokka answers. Thinking that Suki was just trying to make small talk as they packed he asks, "What's yours?"

"Um…probably like cabbage and dumplings or cabbage and noodles," Suki replies. Sokka smiles not particularly surprised by her answer since his girlfriend had a preference for the simpler things in life. The plain clothing she tended to wear and the lack of decorations in her house on Kyoshi Island was enough proof of that.

After completing their packing, the two of them walked hand-in-hand to the docks on Kyoshi Island. The air ship Suki would be taking was already here and so was Aang and Appa.

"See you soon, beautiful," Sokka tells Suki before tilting his head down slightly to give her a peck on the lips. Suki smiles softly when her boyfriend starts to pepper her with kisses and is about to earnestly return the favor when she suddenly hears, "Dear Kyoshi! You two had all last week to get that out of your system! Can you get on the damned air ship already, Suki?"

Suki turns towards the ship to see Jia, lying her head on the railing of the ship as her arms hang over the railing. The other Kyoshi Warriors just giggle softly as Aang, still waiting on Appa, chuckles.

"Okay, okay. Give me a second! I won't see him for like two months!"

"Fine," Jia says, as Suki turns around to continue her farewell to Sokka, "Its been a second. Can we go now?"

Suki turns around again, throwing Jia a glare. The glare is returned by Jia pouting and saying," I'm hungry and Ai isn't planning on cooking until you get up here!"

Suki stops glaring at her only to shake her head at Jia's impatience. She turns back around to Sokka to give him another goodbye kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck as he wraps his around her waist. The two don't bother to break apart until Sun suddenly yells, "Hey, now Sokka! Don't suddenly decide to do such naughty things!" It takes Suki a little bit to realize what Sun is talking about. Everything they were doing felt normal. She could tell by look at Sokka that he was confused as well before he suddenly lets his hands move back up to her waist. He had been grabbing her behind again, yet another thing that the two of them were used to but never particularly did in public. Both of them blush and immediately separating from each other before laughing and waving goodbye. The two walk their separate ways knowing that they would be reunited again.

* * *

Suki wasn't particularly surprised about arriving to an empty apartment once she was in Ba Sing Sae. Despite usually giving her a time frame how long he would be working, Sokka was almost always gone for longer than he promised whenever he traveled around with Aang. Despite her usual desire for him to quickly finish his work and rush to her side, Suki was currently hoping he would take as long as he possibly could. After all, she would probably need a while in order to make sure her idea would go smoothly.

Since she felt that Sokka always did a lot for her and had to put up with her craziness a lot of the time, she wanted to do something special for him. She had asked Sokka what his favorite dish was, hoping that she would be able to make it for him - despite her usual inability to properly cook, since food was pretty much what he loved the most in the world.

She had hoped he wouldn't say a Water Tribe dish, despite giving him the option to choose from the dishes from any culture including his own, because she wasn't sure who she would be able to get a hold of to help her learn how to cook such a dish. Luckily, Katara had been visiting her Gran Gran and father in the Southern Water Tribe and had promised to travel to Ba Sing Sae to help Suki after Suki had mentioned that she wanted to learn how to cook stewed sea prunes for Sokka in one of her letters to the Water Tribeswoman.

Katara arrived a couple of days after Suki, with a letter from Aang and Sokka saying things were taking longer than they had hoped but that they would probably be done in a couple of days and should be in Ba Sing Sae in about a week.

Wanting to get as much practice as possible, Suki dragged Katara to the nearest market, hoping that there would be foreign sellers there so that she could purchase the ingredients she needed. Luckily, everything she could have possibly needed was there and the girls quickly bought the ingredients before heading back to Sokka's apartment.

As soon as the get to the kitchen, Suki set up the pot, adds water to it, and starts a fire beneath it.

Suki pulls out the ingredients Katara told her to buy: sea prunes, seaweed, and squid. Suki had been a bit surprised when Katara had suddenly told her to also buy seaweed and squid, having heard from Aang that the dish only included sea prunes when he had tried it. Katara had merely explained that the dish at its simplest was just sea prunes boiled in water but that other ingredients could be added as wanted; Katara and Sokka's Gran Gran usually cooked it with these ingredients and Sokka had rarely eaten sea prunes made by other people, so Katara figured that his favorite version of it would include seaweed and squid along with the sea prunes.

"So the process is pretty simple. We cut up everything first, then we add the sea prunes, let it boil for a little while, then add seaweed and squid to boost the flavor of the dish," Katara explains as she searches Sokka's kitchen for a knife. She finds a sharpened one, after searching for a while, then takes one of the sea prunes so that she can show Suki how to cut it.

"So when these aren't boiled, they can be a bit tough to cut. You want to put enough strength into so that you can actually cut it but you want to be able to control how much strength you put into it because you don't want to cut yourself," Katara continues, cutting the sea prune in half with seemingly little-to-no-effort. Katara hands Suki the knife before saying, "You try this time."

Suki grabs a prune, sets it down on the counter - just like Katara had done - and goes to cut it with the knife, only to find that the prune was indeed pretty hard to cut. She tries to push it down a bit harder, but the knife doesn't budge. She smiles sheepishly when Katara has to fight back some giggles. Katara motions for Suki to step back for a second before easily cutting the rest of the prune. Katara, yet again hands Suki the knife before saying, "Try again. You'll get it this time."

Suki did manage to cut the next prune but only after struggling for a couple of minutes and cutting one of her fingers. Even then, the prune was cut haphazardly and wasn't nearly as clean-cut as the ones Katara had cut up previously.

"Are you okay?" Kat had asked after noticing that Suki had cut herself, she pulls Suki hand towards herself to see how deep the cut was. Despite the cut not being very deep, Katara gets some water from her pouch, about to heal the cut before Suki stops her.

"Let's be honest. This is probably just the first of many cuts so we might as well wait until the end to just heal them all at once."

Suki was definitely right, managing to cut herself about four more times before finally chopping up all of the prunes she and Katara had purchased.

"Spirits, woman," Katara states as she checks to make sure none of the cuts were deep. She had made Suki promise to stop if any of the cuts weren't very shallow. After completing her inspection, Katara throws the prunes into the pot to boil.

"I thought we were going to cut everything up first?" Suki asks, confusion written on her face.

"The prunes need to boil before we add anything and, no offense, with how long it took to just cut up the prunes, they should be done boiling by the time we finish cutting up everything else."

"No offense taken," Suki laughs.

"Okay. So next we need to cut up the squid. We generally only use the outer flesh of the squid, so the innards need to be taken out before we cut the squid into pieces. Also, since this squid is salt-cured, you might want me to heal up those cuts or this will sting. A lot."

"So, why did we get salt-cured squid instead of fresh squid?" Suki asks as Katara quickly heals up her cuts.

"So, whenever adding extra ingredients to stewed sea prunes, you want to make sure the flavor is still right and doesn't taste more like the flavors you're adding in than sea prunes. Adding seaweed that has been soaked in water can make the stew more watery and bland but adding the salt-cured squid makes it - obviously - saltier. If the stew tastes too bland, we add more squid. If the stew tastes too salty, we just add more seaweed. Basically it's just to help balance the dish. Fresh squid would make the whole dish taste strange and wouldn't particularly solve any blandness if the stew is too plain."

"So, it's not too hard to correct if the stew tastes too bland or too salty. That's good. Hopefully I can't mess this up too badly then."

Katara chuckles, "You say that as if you mess up stuff on a normal basis."

"You have no idea."

Katara and Suki clear out the innards of the squid carefully, with the only set back being when ink from the squid suddenly flew all over the place and the two of them had to clean it up.

"Now, we just need to cut up the parts we will use. I usually just cut it into long strips," Katara states, making a couple of strips before handing the knife to Suki.

Suki underestimates just how slippery the squid's flesh is, as she tries to hold down the squid and make cuts. At one point, she decides that holding the end of the squid as she cuts wasn't working and brings her left hand closer to where she is cutting, much to Katara's worry. Katara's worries prove to be for good reason, after Suki manages to cut herself again. Suki stops cutting immediately, sighs, and turns towards Katara-who is already holding her hand out to take Suki's-and waits for Katara to see if the cut is too deep. Luckily, the cut is yet again minor so Suki starts cutting again, trying to find a better way to hold the squid down.

Suki finally managed to get the squid cut up, though not without more cuts on her fingers that Katara felt the need to check on yet again. Upon finishing, she sets the squid aside and gathers up the seaweed that needed to be cut up next.

"For the seaweed, let's just pull it apart with our hands to avoid you cutting yourself more," Katara says wearily, causing Suki to laugh. The task doesn't take long since Suki didn't have to think about how she was pulling the seaweed apart in the same manner as she had to think about how she was cutting the sea prunes and squid. Presentation was apparently not the main focus of today.

"We just need to soak the seaweed in some water for a little while," Katara goes to stir the sea prunes by water bending the contents of the pot, seeing if they have boiled to a point where the rest of the ingredients could be added, "once we let them soak for a couple of minutes, we should be able to add them in along with the squid."

The two of them put the seaweed in a bowl of water and chat for a couple of minutes about different things: how their trip before getting here was, how things with their boyfriends were going, and the latest gossip that had been spreading around.

"So what made you want to learn how to cook this for Sokka anyways?" Katara asks, as she checks to see if the seaweed is done soaking.

"He's always doing stuff for me so I just wanted to do something I guess. Food seemed like a pretty good idea since," Suki chuckles, not bothering to finish the sentence since Katara knew quite well just how much her brother loved food.

"Well, I'm sure he'll love it when you make it for him," Katara says, reassuringly, "I think the seaweed's done soaking now, so we can starting adding everything else in now."

"Is there a certain amount of squid and seaweed you put in before adding them with the purpose of just correcting the flavor?"

"Hmm…I'd say add about half of the seaweed in and a third of the squid in before just adding in more to get the right taste."

Suki does as Katara suggests and stirs the contents of the pot with a spoon before tasting it. Suki cringes at the taste.

"Don't worry too much if it tastes weird to you. It's an acquired taste. I can taste it to see if it taste right." Suki gives Katara the spoon and waits for her to taste it. Katara makes a confused face before deciding to taste it again. The second taste gets the same reaction as the first.

"I'm not sure how but it doesn't taste bland or salty but it also doesn't taste like it should taste. I don't even know what we should add more of in order to fix it."

Suki laughs softly, not particularly surprised that she failed at her first attempt at making the dish.

"How about we go back to the market tomorrow morning and get enough ingredients to make it twice. That way we can make it together one more time and then you can try making it by yourself. Or we can make it at the same time so you can follow along as I do it."

"Either way works. I still need to taste how it's actually supposed to taste so I know what it should taste like whenever I make it.

"Okay. We'll probably have to do it together once then you do it alone because I just realized Sokka only has one pot and trying to haul the pot Aang has at his house would take me a while." The two of the chuckle before making arrangements to meet up with each other the following day.

Suki sighs when Katara finally leaves. This was going to be stressful but it would be well worth it in the end if Sokka enjoyed it.

* * *

It has officially been a week and Sokka was finally in Ba Sing Sae. Sokka had Aang drop him off at his apartment for a little while so that he could see Suki. After all, he hadn't seen her beautiful face in a while. The sun had barely risen by the time he had gotten to Ba Sing Sae, so Sokka quietly entered the apartment since he wasn't sure of whether or not his girlfriend was awake already. Sokka notices her eating breakfast at the dining table, facing away from him, and smirks. Time for a sneak attack. Sokka doesn't get far before he hears, "I know you're there, Sokka." Suki doesn't even bother to turn around and look at him showing that he his failure occurred due to him not being quiet enough rather than Suki just happening to look up and notice him.

"Will I ever be able to sneak up on you?" Sokka chuckles before walking to Suki like normal and hugging her from behind, not bothering to let her get up to hug him.

"Maybe. Once you learn to be quieter," Suki encourages, kissing Sokka on the cheek.

After a couple of moments of silence, Sokka unwraps his arms from around Suki before sitting in the other chair at the dining table across from her.

"So, I need to wrap up some stuff with Aang today and then we can officially start our vacation."

"Okay. Do you think you'll be back to eat dinner?"

"Hopefully, yeah."

"Okay."

Sokka smiles before getting up to kiss Suki goodbye and heading back to Aang, who was still waiting outside of his apartment.

Suki walks up to the window in Sokka's apartment, waiting for him and Aang to leave. She sits back down at the dining table to finish eating, as she plans out what all she needed to do in order to have dinner ready for tonight.

* * *

_Damn, it was getting late_, Sokka couldn't help but think as he made his way to his apartment in the Middle Ring of Bae Sing Sae. He had originally planned to take the rail system to get to the Middle Ring but apparently its was shut down for repairs today. Having already told Aang that he would get home himself so that the airbender could - annoyingly - take Sokka's sister out on a date, Sokka only other option to get home - that wouldn't cost him a ridiculous amount of money - was to walk.

Sokka's stomach growls loudly as he made his way through the streets. He had purposely avoided snacking after lunch since he was looking forward to his dinner with Suki. As late as it was though, Sokka wouldn't be surprised if she was already asleep. He just hopes that she wouldn't be mad about not coming home to eat dinner at a reasonable time.

Sokka walks into his dark apartment, a bit worried about how quiet it was inside. He feels a little less worried upon seeing a couple of candles lit on the dining room table along with a bowl of food and a note. He picks up the note, having trouble reading it since there wasn't much lighting in the room.

_Sokka,_

_I hope you enjoy your dinner. There's more left in the pot if you decide you want more. Hopefully, it's still warm when you get here._

_Suki_

_P.S. None of that was meant to be sarcastic but it kinda sounds like it is now that I read over it…._

Sokka chuckles at his girlfriend worrying about any misunderstandings, before touching the bowl of food on the table. It was still pretty warm, meaning she must have fixed it rather recently. He smiles softly before sitting down to eat. He couldn't particularly tell what it was he was eating just by looking at it. There wasn't enough lighting after all. So he shrugs his shoulders, not really worried, before taking a bite of the food. It doesn't take him long to realize what he was eating. He smiles widely before finishing the remnants of the bowl and helping himself to seconds and thirds. Sokka quietly cleans up the left overs and washes dishes before walking to his bedroom in the back of the house, knowing that his girlfriend would be sleeping in there despite having her own room in his apartment.

He finds her lying on her stomach, soundly sleeping on his bed. He walks over to the other side of the bed, getting in as quietly as possible before cuddling up beside her. He lets his hand stroke her hair a couple of times. He shouldn't have been particularly surprised by Suki suddenly sitting up, considering he had sat there and touched her hair multiple times when she hadn't expected anyone to be in the house right now.

"Sorry. Did I startle you?" Sokka whispers, gently pulling Suki back down on to the bed. She lies down on her back, turning her head towards Sokka to talk to him.

"A little."

"Sorry. I got back so late. The rail system is down for repairs and Aang went off with Katara so I had to walk back. I hope you're not mad that I missed our little dinner date."

"I'm not mad. I was just worried."

"Sorry to worry you then."

Suki smiles before reaching her hand out to find Sokka's. Realizing what she wants, Sokka quickly holds her hand before continuing their conversation.

"Thanks for the dinner," Sokka tells her, rubbing her hand gently with his thumb as he holds it.

"No problem. Did you like it?"

"Yeah. Hands down some of the best stewed sea prunes I've ever had. It reminded me of home." Sokka hadn't been back to the Southern Water Tribe in at least 10 months.

"Way to over exaggerate," Suki says, playfully rolling her eyes at her boyfriend.

"I'm not exaggerating."

"Then you must have been super hungry."

"I won't deny that I was hungry but me being hungry has nothing to do with how awesome I think that tasted."

Suki chuckles, as Sokka continues to rub her hand with his thumb. He stops suddenly.

"What happened to your hand? Its covered in bandages."

"Hm…? Oh just cuts."

"From?" Sokka asks, waiting for her to finish her explanation.

"Cutting."

"How informative," Sokka says, sarcastically, causing his girlfriend to chuckle softly.

"Cutting up the ingredients for dinner."

"You cut yourself up that much?"

"Yeah. That squid was getting its post-mortem payback and didn't want to stay still."

Sokka frowns, despite his urge to smile at her joke. He quietly asks if she hurt her other hand too.

"Not as much, but yeah there are a few cuts."

"Why go through that much trouble just to cook dinner?"

"You said stewed sea prunes were your favorite dish so I wanted to make it for you since you do so much for me and put up with me and-" Suki is suddenly cut off my Sokka kissing her lips.

"You talk too much," Sokka whispers, earning him a smile from Suki, "Also, you do way more for me then I do for you and it's not putting up with someone if you enjoy being around them so I'm not sure where you're getting those ideas from."

"Well either way, I wanted to do something for you. Since you love food more than anything, I figured it would be a good idea to learn how to make your favorite dish. Katara was a lot of help."

Sokka lifts up an eyebrow at Suki.

"What?" Suki asks, seeing his facial expression thanks to the moonlight that was flooding into his room through one of the windows nearby.

"You think I love food more than anything? There's something else I love way more."

"Really? What?" Suki asks, worried that her idea to cook for him wasn't all that great.

"I'm literally throwing you the most cheesiest line ever and you aren't picking up on it?" Sokka chuckles. Suki just gives him a confused look, causing him to laugh even more. Sokka sits up and hovers over his girlfriend's body before cupping one of her cheeks with his hand and stroking it. He does this for a couple of seconds before lowering himself far enough to whisper " I love you more than anything" in her ear. He quickly moves away, lying back beside her and taking her hand into his. He smiles softly when Suki rubs his hand gently with her thumb and says, "I love you more than anything, too."

They share a quick kiss before falling asleep with a smile on their face and their hands held together lovingly.


	26. Older

**Two stories for a single theme. Enjoy!**

* * *

_1\. More advanced in age in comparison to another._

Sokka must have a thing for older woman.

Back before Aang showed up, Sokka admittedly had crushes on some of the older girls in his village. Despite this, he usually wouldn't do anything about his feelings. As the oldest male in the village, it was his job to focus on protecting everyone else. Feelings and love could wait until later.

Of course this idea changed quickly when he first saw Yue. Gorgeous and courageous Yue, his beloved moon princess whose sacrifice he would never forget. He fell in love the moment he saw her and immediately pushed aside any thoughts of waiting until later. Majestic, kind, mature- all of the characteristics he found himself adoring in the older girls in his village, he found in Yue as well, both when he watched her from a far or when he gathered enough confidence to speak to her.

Losing Yue, made him even more careful with how he approached his relationship with Suki. With the life style they both lived, there was no telling what could happen with either one of them so Sokka didn't want to waste time when showing and telling Suki just how much she meant to him. His love for the woman only seemed to become stronger when he found out that she was a couple of months older than him. A couple months, shouldn't make that much of a difference but for some reason her being older just seemed so right. After all, she was the mature one between the two of them: she's had more experience with love, was better at giving advice and comforting people, and taking charge when she needed to. She had been the one who personally showed him how to make love to a woman, who gave him advice and comforted him when he needed it, and who could get him to be serious during meetings and galas despite his never ending desire to just laugh and joke around. She'd been the first girl to kiss him, the girl who made him change his view on women, who inspired him to aim higher. This girl changed him for the better and he couldn't imagine how his life would have turned out if he had not met her. He also couldn't imagine living the rest of his life without her so it really shouldn't have been that much of surprise that Sokka - after accidentally making a big commotion at the restaurant the couple were dining in - proposed to her, his graceful, beautiful, clever, and badass older woman.

* * *

_2\. Having more years than before._

Suki wakes up to the sound of arguing coming from downstairs. She gets out bed quietly, being careful not to wake up her snoring husband, before grabbing her robe and making her way down the steps of their house in the suburbs.

"I wanted jam on my bread! Not butter!" Suki could hear Kyoshi yelling, as she made her way closer to the hotspot of all of the commotion - the kitchen.

"I didn't want anything on mine..." Hiroyuki mumbles as he pokes the bread in front of him with the butter knife that had been used to spread butter on his and Kyoshi's pieces of toast.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I trying my best!" Yue apologizes, her frustration becoming evident, "Koda, come eat something for breakfast."

"I'm not hungry right now," Hakoda says, lying down on the couch in the living room of the house, trying to go back to sleep after being forced to wake up by his older sister.

Suki sighs before finally stepping into the kitchen.

"Mommy! Yue keeps messing up everyone's breakfast," Kyoshi complains.

"She's trying her best, dearest. It's difficult trying to get food together for four different people. Having butter on your toast isn't going to kill you and if you really want jam just puts some on top of the butter," Suki tells Kyoshi, handing the girl the jar of Bacui berry jam that was in one of the cabinets, "Yue eats her bread with butter so just give your bread to her, Hiroyuki, and mommy will get you a slice of plain bread." Hiroyuki immediately slides the plate over to the seat at the dining room table that Yue usual sits in before patiently waiting for his breakfast. Yue, completely done with her attempts at getting her younger siblings their breakfast, just sits down at the table and eats the bread with butter Hiroyuki just slid to her. Kyoshi frowns, wondering why she couldn't just give Yue her bread and get a new piece but she listens to her mother's suggestion and puts jam over the butter. She hesitates, still annoyed about the butter currently on her breakfast, before taking a bite.

"Oooh, this actually tastes even better!" Kyoshi says, happily taking another bite of her toast

"Hakoda, at least come eat some fruit if you don't want bread. You're going to get hungry sooner or later and you know your class eats lunch rather late in the afternoon."

"Yes ma'am," Hakoda replies reluctantly, getting off of the couch and entering the kitchen. Hakoda gets one of the apples on top of the kitchen counter before sitting down at the dining table. Suki smiles, happy to see everyone eating breakfast and not screaming at each other or complaining.

"You fix everything so easily, mama," Yue remarks, looking at how calm her siblings now were. Suki chuckles softly. It took years for her to be able to fully remember what all four of her children liked and disliked. It also took years of mistakes to as able to calm down her four children whenever everything was chaotic.

"Finish eating then get ready for school, okay? Listen to Yue, like usual," Suki instructs. Sokka and Suki usually had to leave for work before the four kids had to leave for school so, ever since she turned ten, Yue had been in charge of getting everyone to school. Suki had originally been hesitant about the idea of letting Yue handle her three younger siblings by herself but Sokka had talked her into it after telling Suki that Yue was getting older and thus could handle more responsibilities. That and the fact that both Sokka and Suki pretty much had to take turns getting scolded by their respective bosses for being late, even if it was because they were taking their children to school.

Suki makes her way back upstairs before carefully getting back into her bed. She lies there, knowing fully that she probably wasn't going to be able to go to sleep, but still happy to be able to just lie down for a little while and relax. She can't help but smile at her husband's sleeping form, letting out a small chuckle when his snoring suddenly becomes louder. She had grown more accustomed to his snoring as time went by.

Half an hour passes before she hears a knock at her bedroom door. She gets up quietly and opens the door, smiling softly at her kids, who all had on their book bags and were getting ready to head off to school.

She hugs each of them and gives each of them a kiss before asking, " Did you get your lunch boxes?" They all nod.

"Getting ready to go, little ones?" Sokka suddenly says, standing behind his wife. He can't help but laugh when she jumps thanks to him surprising her by being awake all of a sudden. The kids giggle before nodding their heads. Suki moves out of the way, so that Sokka can tell them goodbye. The two of them watch the foursome make their way downstairs and out the door. Suki walks over to the window in their bedroom, that overlooks the front of their house, in order to watch her kids walk down the street. Hiroyuki notices her and waves excitedly. She waves back, unable to help but smile. She continues to watch them until they are out of her range of sight.

She honestly couldn't believe how much older they were getting. She could still remember when she first held each of them in her arms in a tiny bundled up blanket. She smiles again at the happy memories before suddenly jumping again. This time, thanks to Sokka suddenly hugging her from behind. Sokka laughs.

"Either you're getting jumpier or I'm getting better at sneaking up on you," Sokka jokes, causing Suki to to poke his arm playfully in response. She allows herself to settle into his embrace. Taking in the view outside of the window, only for Sokka to suddenly close the blinds.

"Why did you-" She starts to complain, only for a slight gasp to escape her lips in response to Sokka's hands suddenly cupping her breasts.

"I wanted to do an activity," Sokka whispers in her ear, his voice lower than usual. Suki mews softly at Sokka's touch before playfully saying, "Well I wanted to sleep." She easily gets out of Sokka's grasp and walks towards their bed. Sokka pouts, reacting the same way he did whenever she denied him intimate time during their teenage years.

"That used to work all of the time," Sokka says, musing over how many times he had used that line and move in hopes of getting his lover naked in the past.

"Maybe you're losing your touch, old man," Suki can't help but smirk at the at the annoyed look her husband gives her. She's just about to tease him more when she suddenly finds herself pinned on to their bed, with her robe opened and the sleeves of her night gown falling down her shoulders.

"We'll see about that," Sokka whispers in her ear, making her shiver in delight.

An hour later, Suki found herself unclothed and trying to catch her breath. She can't help but laugh at her husband as she cuddles a little closer to him. He smirks at her, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her against him.

"What was that about losing my touch, missy?" Sokka asks, lifting an eyebrow at her playfully. Suki can't help but go into a fit of giggles, acting the same way she had when they were teenagers.

"I admit you still got it, smooth guy," Suki lets her hand caress her husband's chiseled torso before adding, "despite being 40."

"Well you're still absolutely gorgeous," Sokka says, happily admiring her curves that had became more prominent after having four children before adding, "despite being 40."

"I know something that definitely isn't happening because of the fact that we're 40."

"What's that?"

"There's no way in hell we're going at it for hours upon hours like we did when we were younger."

"Says who?"

"Says my body getting older by the second."

"I totally think we still could."

Suki can't help but laugh before noticing the look in her husband's eyes. He was planning on trying.

"We have, what, another seven hours before the kids are back? I think we could make _great_ use of that time," Sokka states, letting the hand that was around Suki's waist move towards the junction in between her legs. Suki blushes brightly, yet another action she did frequently in her teen years.

"Don't blame me if you have a heart attack, old man."

"Believe me. I just about have a heart attack every time I see you, gorgeous." Suki can't help but laugh. Sokka's cheesiness hasn't changed a bit as he grew older.

"You really wanna go at it for a couple of hours? I can't possibly be attractive enough to hold your attention for that long."

"Can't possibly be attractive enough my ass! And why stop at a couple of hours? We've got seven! Just because we're getting older doesn't mean we can't enjoy some of the stuff we used to do when we were younger."

Suki smiles before finding herself agreeing to Sokka's whims. Getting older was pretty amazing. Or maybe it was simply growing older with the man beside her that she found absolutely amazing.

* * *

**So...we're just going to believe that that last part is T+. XD**

**Originally these were going to be two separate chapters but the first one is really short and they have very similar themes so I just put them together!**

**I've been thinking of starting two other stories: "Firsts" and "Alternatives".**

**The chapters in "Firsts" would pretty much just be about Sokka and Suki's firsts both with each other and without each other and it would still tie in with the story line I have been using for this story ("Dreaming of Sukka"). Some of the topics I have already thought about would be: first kisses, first date, and first child.**

**The chapters in "Alternatives" would be about different Sukka head-cannons that I always see. Its difficult for me to just settle on one head-cannon for a single topic (like how I have been doing for this story line) so I find myself just thinking of all of the alternatives, especially after reading about other people's ideas. Some of the topics would be about children (if Sukka had lots of kids, one kid, no kids), marriage (how they got married, when), death (who died first, how), Suki's family (no family, just one parent, just siblings, a big family), Katara's view on Suki (whether they were best friends or Katara didn't particularly approve of her), etc.**

**I'm mentioning this because I have been putting more focus on writing chapters for this story despite already having ideas for the other two. I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested in me writing the other two or if I should just keep focusing on this story for now.**

**Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any ideas for any topics you want to see in this story or one of the other stories I have talked about writing!**

**Sorry for the long rant!**

**I hope you enjoyed~**


	27. His Clothes

**Yay! Three stories, same theme! Enjoy!**

* * *

Suki moves about her house on Kyoshi Island, completing the chores that needed to be done before she had to go back to work the following day. She had already swept both the inside of her house and her patio outside. She had washed dishes after eating dinner by herself and made up her bed. All that was really left to do was to get the laundry off the line behind her house.

Suki grabs her laundry basket and heads outside, allowing herself to admire the scenic view of the sun setting before night falls. She smiles before continuing to make her way to the back of her house where she had her laundry line set up in the back. Suki began checking the clothing to make sure all of them were dry. Sometimes the clothes that were on the line would dry on the side where the sun was facing but not on the opposite side so she had made sure to check both sides before pulling the clothes off of the line. Suki reaches for the last article of clothing before pausing. She didn't recall owning the blue tunic that was currently in front of her but she realized rather quickly that it was one of Sokka's. He must have left it when he was in a rush to leave for the Southern Water Tribe. He had gotten news from his sister that their grandmother was pretty sick so Sokka wanted to stay by her side until she either got better or passed on.

Suki finds her fingers running across the fabric of her boyfriend's tunic as she continues letting her mind be consumed with thoughts and memories of him.

Sokka has always been very caring towards the people he loved. Whether it was his family, his friends, or his lover, he was always trying to be there to support them and help them out. So she wasn't surprised by him suddenly up and leaving to go see his grandmother. His caring nature for his loved ones was one of the things she adored about him.

She lets her eyes drift up back towards her clothing line, remembering that Sokka had made alterations to the drying rack. He had put together a pulley system for it so that the two sided line could be moved about by pulling the line. This meant that Suki didn't have take the clothes off of the line and turning them around so that the side that had been facing away from the sun could get dry too. She just had to pull the line until all of the clothes that were on the back side of the line were now on the front side of it. That being said Suki generally forgot that Sokka had made that alteration and just continued to turn the clothing around. She felt a bit bad for not making use of Sokka's alterations but she couldn't particularly help that the fact that she was so used to doing her laundry the old way that she forgot Sokka had given her a new way.

After snapping out of her reverie, Suki quickly takes Sokka's tunic off of the line and heads back inside of her house to fold the clothes and put them away. Suki sits down on the floor and places the basket in front of her. She pulls Sokka's tunic off of the top deciding to save it towards the end so that she could have time to sort out where would be an appropriate spot to put it. She quickly folds her own clothes before picking up the blue tunic again. She can't help but stare at it again, feeling the fabric underneath her fingertips. She smiles painfully as she suddenly finds herself overwhelmingly missing her boyfriend. She felt selfish for wishing he was here when he was currently staying by his grandmothers side. She hugs the fabric to her chest and allows herself to daydream about him again. She can't help but think, despite the it having been washed earlier that day, the tunic still smelled of a scent Suki could only describe as Sokka. She honestly did miss him despite only a week having passed. What was she going to do when they were separated for a month or more at a time again due to their respective occupations? She sighs softly, wishing he would hurry back.

She's so lost in thought that she doesn't hear a knock at her door or the turning of a key. She doesn't notice a man walking into her house or kneeling beside her on the floor.

"I'm back," Sokka says, a confused look plastered on his face. Suki jumps at suddenly hearing her boyfriend's voice. She finds herself wondering if she was just imagining him being here before turning to the direction the voice came from. He was actually here with all of his handsome looks and suaveness…and here she was currently holding his clothes to herself with a blank, love-sick expression plastered on her face. She becomes flustered.

"H-how long have you been here?" Suki stutters, still cradling his tunic to her chest in hopes that he wouldn't notice that she was holding it. She can't help but let a smile slide across her lips, happy that her boyfriend has come back.

"Long enough, beautiful. I called your name like three times and you didn't answer. You looked like your mind was somewhere else completely," Sokka chuckles.

"It was. I didn't even hear you come in…."

"That's dangerous you know….What if someone else had walked in other than me? Please be more careful."

"The only people with a key to this house are me, you, and my warriors. I pretty sure I would have noticed someone breaking my door down or trying to pick the lock," Suki frowns, not particularly happy about her boyfriend scolding her after just getting back from his trip. "Plus, it's your fault I was in that state," Suki mumbles, her cheeks that had barely managed calmed down, reddening again.

Sokka blinks a couple of times, wondering why it was his fault before smirking and confidently asking, "Did you miss me, cutie?"

"No way in hell. Why would I miss an idiot like you?" Suki says, making a half-hearted attempt to regain some of her usual aloof and cool appearance.

"Oh really? Why did you suddenly start smiling and blushing when you realized I was here again? And why are you clinging to one of my tunics so much?"

"I was smiling because I remembered a joke Ai told me, I might have caught Sun's cold so that might be why my cheeks are red, and I wanted to make sure your tunic was washed properly so I had to closely examine it," Suki lies, looking away from Sokka so that he couldn't call her out on lying solely after looking at her face. That still didn't do her much good though. Sokka could always seem to tell when she was lying even if he wasn't looking directly at her.

"Right, right. What was the conversation we started having last week? About - oh, I don't know - you actually saying what's going on in that beautiful head of yours." Sokka reminds her playfully, letting himself brush a few strands of stray hair away from Suki's flustered face.

"I-I know. I'm sorry. I can't help it. Saying what's really on my mind is embarrassing."

"There's no need to be embarrassed, my love," Sokka says reassuringly. Suki pauses before blurting out, "I missed you." Seeming to be shocked by her own actions, Suki hides her face in Sokka's tunic. Sokka can't help but smile at his girlfriend's cuteness before yanking his tunic away from her. Suki gets ready to complain but is cut off by Sokka suddenly holding her in his arms.

"Isn't holding me way better than holding some of my clothes?" Sokka whispers in her ear, sending a shiver down the Kyoshi Warrior's spine. Sokka can't help but smile when Suki hugs him to herself. They sit like that for a little while before Suki breaks the silence.

"How's your grandmother doing?" She asks, actually curious about his answer. She hadn't been expecting him to be back so soon. It takes Appa about two days to get to the Southern Water Tribe from on Kyoshi Island and two days to return.

"Luckily, she was doing fine by the time Kat and I got home. She kept spouting that it wasn't her time to go since there were still some things in this world she wanted to see before she passed own," Sokka chuckles.

"Oh? What kinds of things?" Suki asks. Sokka suddenly blushes, making Suki raise an eyebrow in confusion.

"Er…great-grandkids and such," Sokka says shyly. Suki face heats up again, much to her annoyance.

"Oh….She'd have to wait a little bit before that happens. Neither one of her grandkids are married yet…."

"Yeah…um…do you want kids in the future?" Sokka asks suddenly, causing his girlfriend to bury her face into his chest in embarrassment.

"Y-yeah. But not until after we're married…," Suki answers, her voiced muffled by Sokka's shirt.

"So…you wouldn't mind marrying me?" Suki allows herself to remove her face from the her boyfriend's body in order to look at his face and see if he was serious about the question he was asking. He was. She retakes her position on his chest again before nodding her head. Sokka can't help but grin, holding Suki a bit tighter.

"And…you wouldn't mind having kids with me?" Suki nods quickly in response before stuttering, "C-can we p-please change the subject? This is more embarrassing than getting caught holding your clothes and daydreaming about you."

"So you admit that that was what you were doing?"

"Shut up!" Suki hits his arm lightly, causing Sokka to chuckle and stare at her lovingly. He gently separates himself from Suki before giving her a soft kiss on the lips. Suki is still blushing and adverting her eyes from his.

"I swear you're the cutest thing in the world," Sokka smiles before pulling her in for another kiss.

* * *

Suki and Sokka had quite an...um...interesting night but it was currently morning and the two of them were in the middle of regretting many of their actions from the night prior, namely downing a whole bottle of rice wine together and finishing off a whole box of pau buns from the bakery across the street of Sokka's apartment in Ba Sing Sae. Battling both hangovers and stomach aches at the same time was not their ideal way of waking up in the morning. On top of that they were supposed to meet up with the rest of the Gaang earlier and they were currently running late. That being said, neither one of them particularly had the will to get out of Sokka's bed.

The two of them look at each other before giving weak smiles.

"What should we do? They are probably still expecting us...," Sokka whispers, too tired to speak much louder.

"Do you want to have Hawky send them a message saying we're sick?" Suki asks quietly. Hawky had returned after having gone missing almost a whole year ago so Sokka could now send messages via Hawky whenever he wanted, as long as Hawky manage to get lost again.

"I guess we could -" Sokka is cut off by a knocking at the front door of his apartment. The couple frowns, not wanting to answer the door. Whoever got up would also have to figure out where they're clothes went because they had haphazardly been thrown on the floor the night prior and the two were currently lying in bed in their birthday suits.

"Earth, Water, Air, Fire? Loser has to go answer the door?" Sokka suggests as another round of knocks echo into the bedroom. Suki nods in agreement before waiting for the cue to throw out her element. Suki wiggles her fingers, signalling that she had chosen fire while Sokka's hand is in the fist showing that he had chosen earth.

"I win," Sokka whispers.

"Mother Fu-" Suki is cut off by more knocking at the door, "One second!" Suki yells, causing both herself and her boyfriend to wince. Her loud voice was causing both of their head, thanks to being hungover, to pound even more. Suki clumsily gets out of the bed and grabs the nearest shirt and pants before teetering to the door of Sokka's apartment. She makes an attempt to smooth down her hair before opening the door and seeing the rest of the Gaang standing there.

"Hey...," Suki greets, "Sorry we aren't feeling too good so we haven't even gotten ready to leave." Suki squints her eyes, thanks to the brightness of the sun. Katara frowns before placing her hand on Suki's forehead.

"You do feel like you have a bit of a fever," Katara comments, giving Suki a worried look.

"If anything those two are probably hungover more than they are sick. I can smell the rice wine all the way from here," Toph states.

"Moderation is key. Have you two never heard that saying?," Katara sighs disapprovingly, once she realizes that Toph is right about Suki's current state.

"It can't be helped. I'll make you two some stew so you can feel a bit better," Katara says.

The Gaang invites themselves in, already trying to figure out who is helping out with the stew, before Suki can bother stopping them. Zuko, doesn't even get a single foot inside of the apartment before Suki notices him giving her a once over.

"What?" Suki asks, annoyance laced into her voice.

"You look like your going to heave at any second...," Zuko states.

"What?" Suki asks, she honestly didn't have enough will power to concentrate on what Zuko was saying to her.

"You look like your going to puke!" Zuko yells, thinking that Suki just can't hear him and ultimately causing Suki to wince. Suki frowns, throwing him a glare for being too loud despite knowing the current condition she was in. "Sorry. Forgot you were hungover." There is an awkward silence between the two, which had admittedly become quite a normal occurrence between the two of them.

"Do you have something else to say? You're standing in the doorway and I need to close the door," Suki explains, causing Zuko to frown at her bluntness.

"Aren't those Sokka's clothes?," He asks as he gets out of the doorway and closes the door for Suki.

Suki looks down and realizes that she indeed did have Sokka's clothes on, "That explains why they don't fit me...," Suki says, not particularly concerned by the fact that she had her boyfriend's outfit from last night on or that his pants were slowly falling off of her waist. At least, not until Katara suddenly steps into Sokka's bedroom and starts yelling, "Sokka! Why the hell don't you have any clothes on!" Suki winces at Katara raising her voice before hearing her boyfriend yell, "I don't know where my clothes went right now!"

"How the hell do you not know where your own clothes went, you drunk idiot?" Katara asks. Sokka was about to correct her in saying that he was hungover not drunk but Suki suddenly walks in wearing the clothes he had been looking for.

"Sorry, I put on your clothes on accident since they were the closest. One second, I'll give them back to you," she explains, already starting to try an get Sokka's clothes off of her body.

"Don't suddenly start stripping!" Katara yells, causing Sokka and Suki to grimace. Suki rubs her temples, trying to calm down the nausea she was currently having.

Katara sighs at the hungover couple in front of her, shaking her head disapprovingly, "I'll make you two idiots some stew so just lie down for now...after you get the correct clothes on. I hope this teaches you two not to drink until you're dead drunk." Sokka rolls his eyes, or attempts to do so in his current state. He usually didn't drink to begin with so being drunk and hungover were both rather new experiences.

Katara walks out of the room quickly, leaving the couple to themselves again.

"My head feels like its being split in two," Suki whispers. Sokka nods in agreement before gently tapping the empty side of the bed beside him, indicating for her to lie back down. She quickly does so, laying her head on her boyfriend's chest before trying to go back to sleep.

"By the way, you look gorgeous in my clothes," Sokka smiles, kissing his lover's forehead. Suki laughs softly before once again trying to go to sleep. Sadly she doesn't even get a chance to start drifting off due to Katara coming back in the room and yelling, "I thought I told you two to get the correct clothes on!"

* * *

Sokka slowly makes his way to the house he shared with his wife in Republic City. Having just moved to the city, they were currently living in a house provided to them that wasn't particularly to their liking. It didn't particularly have a homey feel and the two were fairly uncomfortable in the house. Everything in there was highly expensive and they both felt like they might break something in there at any moment. Sokka was supposed to be looking into getting another house but had been too busy lately to continue his search.

Sokka finally arrives at the house, a worn expression plastered on his face. He looks for his keys, finds them, curses when he drops them and can't find them, before finally getting the door open and stepping foot inside. He closes and locks the door before leaning his back on it and closing his eyes. He sighs. He honestly just wanted to go to sleep after the long, boring meeting that lasted from earlier that morning to the late evening. He knew that he would have to endure such things when he agreed to become the Southern Water Tribe's representative in the Council but he still couldn't believe they didn't just plan separate meetings that were short in length rather than the single, super long one that he attended today.

"You're back." he hears his wife say.

"Yeah." Sokka says, his eyes still closed as he continues to lean on the front door of their luxurious house.

"You sound tired. Did you have a long day?"

"Yeah."

He walks in the direction from which he hears his wife's voice.

"How was your day? Did you -" Sokka starts, only to stop when he walks into the living room and finds his wife lounging on the couch. She was currently wearing one of his old tunics rather than her normal clothes and her legs were currently crossed over each other as she lies on the couch, reading a scroll. She looked absolutely seductive but Sokka knew right away that she didn't have the intention of posing sexily on the couch. He decides to just comment on what he knew she had done on purpose.

"You're wearing my clothes...," Sokka comments, the blood in his body already rushing south. Suki continues looking at the scroll in front of her rather than look at Sokka.

"Yeah. You don't mind do you? I haven't gotten a chance to wash my clothes yet since its been raining so much lately and I won't be able to dry the clothes." Sokka feels the urge to remind her that he had told her to buy more clothes a couple of weeks ago and that she had ignored him, but he stops himself. After all, her not having enough clothes led to this amazing moment.

"I don't mind at all," Sokka gulps, unable to keep his eyes from tracing over his wife's exposed legs. He didn't feel so tired anymore.

"Hungry? I made dumplings and seaweed noodles," Suki asks before adding," Or do you just want to go to sleep since you're tired."

"Uh, neither...there's something else I want."

Suki lifts up an eyebrow, confused as to what her husband is talking about until looks away from the scroll she was reading to see the look in his eyes. Sokka walks towards the couch as Suki sits up to make room for him. He sits down before pulling his wife closer to him and kissing her neck.

"W-what brought this on? I thought you said you were tired," Suki says, biting her lips to keep moans from leaking out.

"I was tired but seeing you dressed like that..." Sokka trails off as his mouth trails lower on Suki's body.

"I'm just wearing one of your tunics, why is that so appealing?"

"I've told you multiple times that you look gorgeous in my clothes, haven't I?" Sokka smirks, before starting to unbutton his shirt.

"T-the food will get cold," Suki says pushing her husband off of her gently. Sokka pouts but still allows his hands to run up and down his wife's legs. "Eat first then we can do whatever you want," Suki prompts before removing her husband's hands off of her legs and getting up to walk towards the kitchen. Sokka follows her into the kitchen and sits down at the dining table as she fixes him a plate of food.

"Whatever I want?" Sokka asks, making sure he heard her right.

"Yeah," Suki states, before setting down a plate of food in front of her lover.

"What about where ever I want?" Sokka asks without hesitation.

"S-sokka!" Suki exclaims, her face reddening as she hits his arm lightly. Sokka smirks, refusing to take a bite of food until she agrees to his whims.

"Fine. Where ever you want...," Suki mumbles, her face becoming brighter.

"Awesome. I don't think we've done it on the kitchen island yet," Sokka notes as he digs into his food. Suki hits him again before sitting down beside him at the table.

"How the hell does seeing me in your clothes get you in this kind of mood?"

"I'm pretty sure any man would go crazy seeing their girl in his clothes," Sokka answers as he chows down on another dumpling, happily eyeing his wife as he does so.

* * *

**Yay! Reading other fanfics gives me bad ideas like these XD**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and getting to see more sides of Suki as well!**

**Leave a comment if you would like.**


	28. Training

It's been a while since Sokka last got the chance to watch Suki as she trained.

He can't help but smile as Suki moved gracefully around the room, practicing with her fans. She hadn't bothered to put on her full uniform today so she was clad only in a tank top and some loose-fitting pants. He can't help but take note of everything: the sweat on her brow, the way she was biting her bottom lip in concentration, the stretch of her muscles as she struck the air with her fans, and just simply the commanding aura she had as she practiced in the dojo of her village. Sokka wasn't sure if he'd ever seen her look as sexy as she did when she was training. Well, aside from their more intimate experiences.

Suki suddenly stops, having noticed the goofy, love-struck look on her boyfriend's face. She places her hands on her hips, despite them being occupied by her fans, and gives him a questioning look.

"S-sorry. I didn't mean to stare," Sokka stutters shyly, when he finally realizes Suki stopped practicing. Suki chuckles softly.

"Wanna spar with me?" Suki asks innocently.

"I left my sword and stuff at your house, remember?"

"We can practice hand-to-hand. Or you can borrow my spare fans," Suki replies playfully. Suki knew quite well that Sokka still couldn't get use to fighting with fans so their sparring session would pretty much end within a few seconds.

"Hand-to-hand is fine," Sokka states, getting up from where he had been sitting earlier. Sokka and Suki walk towards opposite sides of the training hall and get into their respective stances.

"Whenever you're ready, Water Tribe."

Both of them continue to stay still, feeling each other out to see who would lose their patience first. Sokka frowns, already about to give up on the waiting game, despite knowing it would put him at a disadvantage. Striking first was usually a good idea but that never seemed to be the case when he fought Suki. He finally gives up, rushing towards the woman in front of him. He launches a punch first but Suki easily cartwheels out of the way, smiling at him when she lands. He frowns again. He had the advantage when it came to strength but that did him no good if he couldn't land an attack on his agile girlfriend in the first place.

He tries again, running up to Suki, and begins to send a volley of punches towards her. She dodges the first two, blocks the third and forth, and catches his fifth when he tries to throw another punch. She immediately presses a pressure point on his hand making him bend down in order to snatch his hand away. Once he bends down, he roundhouse kicks Suki, making her fall on her behind. She gasps in surprise, causing Sokka to smirk, before jumping to her feet and getting into a defensive stance.

"You're getting better. Although using my own moves against me has to be wrong in some kind of way," Suki compliments. Sokka chuckles. While sparring with her in the past, Sokka realized very quickly that Suki's go to attack was a roundhouse kick. Having seen her do it so many times, it was only naturally for him to pick up the move as well.

"Well, I do have an amazing sparring partner so its no surprise that I would copy her moves," Sokka praises. Suki smiles before suddenly making a dash towards Sokka and kicking his calves in a wide sweeping motion. Sokka ends up on his back with Suki straddling his waist and both of her hands pinning his arms to the ground.

"The original is always better though," Suki smirks, putting more pressure on Sokka's arms when he tries to get out of her grip.

"I suppose," Sokka admits, keeping still long enough to spot an opening to escape his girlfriend's grasp. Sokka rolls to his side, using the momentum to get his girlfriend off, before wrestling her to the ground. The warriors fight on the floor, each trying to get the upper hand. Lucky for Sokka, Suki tended to get tired a lot quicker than him and her techniques begin to get sloppier as she gets tired. After several minutes of wrestling, Sokka found himself above his Kyoshi Warrior, pinning her hands above her head and straddling her waist. Sokka smirks, unable to keep from snickering at his lover's heavy breathing.

"Tired? Wanna surrender?," Sokka teases.

"No way in hell. If anything, you should surrender."

"Huh? Why should I surrender when I'm clearly winning?" Sokka asks, a confused look plastered on his face. He feels one of Suki's legs gently tap the junction between his legs. He winces, realizing why she suddenly suggested that he should surrender.

"You got sloppy and left yourself open," Suki says simply, "Plus you didn't bother to do anything to stop my legs in general. Even if I didn't decide that kneeing you in the groin would be more effective, you would have gotten kicked off of me sooner or later."

Sokka sighs before letting go of Suki's hands and holding his own up in the air as a sign of surrender. Suki snickers.

"So how exactly do I not leave myself open?," Sokka asks. Suki motions for him to repeat the position they had been in. Sokka pins her hands above her head again and waits for her to explain.

"Honestly, it just depends on what you feel comfortable with. If you were only really worried about getting kneed, you could sit on on my waist rather than just straddle but since you have to worry about me escaping too it would probably be best to just put all of your weight on me to make it harder for me to escape."

Sokka nods his head in understanding before trying the second one. He lies completely on top of her body, still pinning her arms above her head.

"Like this?" Sokka asks. Suki nods her head in affirmation before wiggling around to show that she couldn't move very easily with all of his weight on top of her.

"Even then, I'm still probably one of the only people you'd be trying to get to surrender in this way," Suki notes, "Using an arm lock would be more effective for submission."

"Yeah. You generally aren't someone who surrenders when I do try that on you so I have to do all this extra work. Even then you managed to make _me_ surrender," Sokka chuckles.

"You still did a good job," Suki smiles, giving her boyfriend reassurance that he had improved since the last time they had sparred, "But of course, I'm not going to let you beat me that easily," Suki laughs. "Also, you're heavy, so do you mind getting off?"

Sokka chuckles again before blushing softly upon fully remembering that his body was flush against Suki's. The two of them had a habit of not really realizing what kind of positions they had put themselves in or what parts of their bodies had been touching until after they finished sparring. He gets off of his girlfriend quickly, holding out his hand to help her up.

"I'm not that heavy and even if I am, its _all _muscle," Sokka flexes, as Suki shakes her head at her boyfriend's confidence. She punches him playfully in the arm and is admittedly taken aback by the fact that his arms were harder than before.

"Ooh! That might actually be muscle. Been working out?"

"Well, you know. I'll grab a tree branch and do a few chin touches every now and then, nothing major."

Suki chuckles. Sokka smiles back before giving Suki a gentle kiss on her lips. A simple kiss quickly turns into a heated make out session before the lovers bother to stop themselves.

"We should probably leave the dojo before we...you know...end up doing another activity," Suki suggests, quickly gathering her gear before heading towards the entrance of the dojo. Sokka quickly grabs a hold of Suki's hand and allows her to lead him towards her house.

"Awww. I think we could have managed a quickie in there," Sokka smirks, flashing her a brilliant smile that makes her heart skip a beat and her feet move faster. She wanted him out of those clothes as soon as possible but she could only get that done once they got to her house. After all, she did _have_ to see for herself just how muscular her boyfriend had managed to get since the last time she had seen him.

"Well, I didn't feel like getting caught doing that in the dojo, _again_," Suki says, reminding her lover of the last time things got intimate in there. Quite a few of her warriors had walked in on the two of them going at it. That was definitely not one of Suki's fondest memories. "Plus, you're probably hungry, right?" She figured that Sokka wouldn't be interested in much of anything until after his stomach was full.

"Yeah, sparring does really works up my appetite. But, I think I'm in the mood to eat something other than food," Sokka confesses. Suki stops in her tracks to look at him and finds herself wondering what else he could possibly eat besides food. Though she knew quite well that he wanted her, she doesn't realize just how badly until she notices the lustful look in her boyfriend's eyes. She finds herself blushing softly when she realizes what he could possibly mean given the fact that he seemed more interested in her than food at the moment. Suki starts walking again, her pace even quicker than before.

"Why in bloody hell is my house so far away?"

* * *

**Hooray for including actual lines from A:tLA into stories. It makes me happy. XD**

**Obviously, I don't own the line, "Well, you know. I'll grab a tree branch and do a few chin touches every now and then, nothing major," or these characters!**

**Leave a comment if you would like.**


	29. Good Enough

**Sorry that it took so long but this story is a lot longer than I was expecting it to be~**

**Hopefully the format isn't too difficult but lines that are in italics are side stories or more specifically memories that Sokka has of Suki. You'll understand what I mean when you get to that part. Hopefully~**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Suki was currently lounging on one of the many couches in the Fire Nation Palace along side Fire Lady Mai, as they waited for a guest to arrive. Zuko, Sokka, and Aang ran off a few of weeks ago to go take care of a few disputes happening between some Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom citizens so Suki had been keeping Mai company for the time being. Toph was off teaching metalbending again but had promised to visit another time while Tylee decided to visit her family for the day and would come see Suki and Mai soon as well. Katara had chosen to take the few weeks away from Aang to visit her family in the South Pole but had promised to come have a girl's night with Mai and Suki at the palace. Tonight was that night Katara was expected to visit.

Suki and Mai had been trying to keep themselves entertained as they waited for the master waterbender but playing Pai Sho, sparring, chatting, and recommending stories to each other only lasts for so long. The two of them sat on the couch in comfortable silence as they waited for Katara. Suki couldn't help but laugh softly when Mai suddenly decides to take out her multiple hair pieces, letting her hair completely down, and takes off some of the layers of clothing she was wearing. She laughs even more when Mai gives up on sitting up straight and just lies her head on Suki's lap and allows her feet to rest comfortably on one of the ends of the couch.

"Comfy?" Suki asks playfully.

"Well I don't feel as nauseous as of right now," Mai notes before giving one of her trademark sighs.

"Are you sure we should be having a girl's night when you don't feel good?"

"Its been like this for the last few weeks. I'll be fine so there's no need to cancel. Its not everyday we are able to get together and just peacefully hang out. We're usually off with the guys taking care of business too."

"True. Let me know if it gets worse or, better yet, let Kat know once she gets here."

Mai nods in agreement before frowning at her bangs getting in her eyes. Mai tries to blow them out of the way but they fall back into the same place making her sigh again. Suki chuckles again before pushing her bangs out of the way.

"Thanks," Mai mouths.

"No problem. I guess you have to get your bangs cut tomorrow," Suki smiles.

"Yeah, I guess."

Another silence envelopes the two, though neither of them were bothered by it. Ju, one of the servants in the palace, suddenly enters the room.

"Lady Mai, your guest has arrived," Ju motions behind her as Katara walks in with a smile. Suki smiles back while Mai simply waves one of her hands in greeting.

"Thank you, Ju. Can you bring some wine to table out in the garden?" Mai asks as she gets up from her spot on the couch.

"Of course Lady Mai," Ju bows quickly before exiting the room to retrieve a bottle of wine.

"Let's go out to the garden for a little while. We can come back in when it gets to dark if you two want," Mai suggests as she walks towards the door, Suki following suit. The trio make their way into the garden, gossiping as they walk.

"Wait. Tylee's really dating Haru?" Katara asks incredulously as she takes a seat at the table. Both Mai and Suki nod their heads in affirmation as they grab their own chairs. Katara mouths a shocked "wow".

"Yeah. We were surprised too given that Ty's made out with the guy on multiple occasions and has gone out on dates with him but refused to start an actual relationship with him," Mai comments.

"To be honest, this is just something my other warriors were talking about so I'm not sure how true it is but, Tylee told Haru she wouldn't date him until he did something about that mustache of his," Suki adds, causing Mai to smirk and Katara to giggle.

"Well, he didn't have it last time I saw him, so your warriors might have been right," Katara states.

Ju makes her way to the table with glasses, setting down a glass of juice in front of Mai and glasses of wine in front of Katara and Suki.

"Why do I have juice...?" Mai frowns, giving Ju a look. Ju seems unfazed though. No wonder Mai seemed to like the girl.

"With all due respect, Lady Mai, in your current condition you shouldn't be consuming alcohol. If you would like, I'll happily make sure you can have some wine once you are allowed to drink it again," Ju explains, bowing quietly before making her way back inside of the building. Katara and Suki struggle to hold back their laughter at Mai being denied wine despite being old enough to have it.

"That reminded me of when Toph went into a bar with me and she tried to order a drink for herself even though she was underage," Suki chuckles, "Are you a child?"

"Ha ha ha. No, I'm not a child," Mai retorts dryly before giving Suki the same look she'd given Ju.

"Then why can't you have wine?" Katara asks after taking a sip from her glass.

Mai moves a single finger in front of her lips, signalling that they have to keep quiet about what she was about to tell them.

"I haven't even told Zuko yet so don't go around telling everyone," Mai whispers. Katara and Suki exchange confused looks before quietly promising that they won't tell a soul until Mai says its okay.

"I'm pregnant," Mai says quietly. Suki and Katara immediately break out into smiles.

"Congrats!" Katara grins, wanting nothing more than to get up from her seat and hug the Fire Lady but knowing Mai would hate every second of it.

"You don't sound so excited, though...," Suki notes.

"It's not that I'm not excited. I really am happy to be having a child with Zuko but you know...I have to give birth to it...that doesn't sound fun in the slightest. Especially since I saw how much pain my mother was in when she was giving birth to my little brother," Mai sighs, Katara and Suki nodding in understanding, "Also morning sickness is killing me slowly and I can't drink alcohol so there are many things not fun about being pregnant."

"How long have you been pregnant?" Katara asks.

"A few weeks," Mai answers, giving Suki a look when the Kyoshian girl suddenly smirks.

"Someone had goodbye sex with her lover," Suki mumbles under her breath so that Mai could hear her but not Katara. Mai almost chokes on her juice, causing Suki to chuckle and Katara to look at the two older girls in confusion.

"Don't worry about it," Mai says to Katara once she'd recovered from almost choking on her drink. The table goes into a comfortable silence, each member of the table taking sips of their respective drinks.

"I can't wait to get married and have kids," Katara suddenly announces. Suki smiles.

"I can already see Sokka trying to kill Aang both at your wedding and after you two tell everyone you're going to have your first child...and any children after that," Suki states, causing Mai to smirk and Katara to giggle again.

"He's going to have to get over it sooner or later. I'm not a little girl anymore," Katara retorts, swirling her wine glass gently as she speaks.

"You're always going to be his baby sister in his mind though," Suki says.

"I know..." Katara trails off, taking another sip of wine, "What about you, Suki?"

"What about me?" Suki asks, she knew quite well what Katara was asking but she was hoping to avoid answering the questions for as long as possible.

"Are you looking forward to getting married and having kids?" Katara asks, waiting for Suki's answer.

"This is some _really_ good wine. What kind is it?" Suki suddenly asks, still avoiding Katara's question. At this point both Mai and Katara know that she's just trying to change the subject. Suki never particularly liked talking about herself in general but Katara couldn't help but be a little worried about how much she was avoiding the current question. The subject _was_ something that affected her brother as well as the Kyoshi Warrior herself. Both the Fire Nation woman and the Water Tribe girl give Suki a look at this point, patiently waiting for her to answer.

"...It's not that I don't want to get married and have kids," Suki sighs, hoping that that answer would be enough to appease Katara. It wasn't.

"Then what is it?" Katara asks immediately.

"...I...just don't know if Sokka and I should get married," Suki continues causing Mai and Katara to exchange looks.

"The perfect couple not getting married? You two have always been head over heels for each other so the thought of you two not getting married is weird. If anything, everyone thought you two would be the first one's to get married not me and Zuko," Mai notes.

"Do you not love him?" Katara asks quietly. Katara honestly wouldn't be surprised if Suki didn't love her brother all that much given how much of an idiot he could be sometimes but she could tell more than anything that Suki was just having a hard time talking in general and that the older girl was hiding something else.

"No, I love him more than anything...I just...," Suki trails off again, deciding to take a few more swigs of wine instead of completing her sentence.

"You just?," Mai coaxes. Katara places her hand over Suki's hand, that was still currently holding her wine glass, and squeezes it reassuringly. Suki sighs, moving her hand away from Katara's in order to take a couple more sips of wine.

"I don't think I'm good enough for him... He could do so much better as far as finding a wife," Suki says softly. Mai and Katara both give her incredulous looks.

"Suki. You're literally the perfect woman for Sokka," Katara says.

"I just think...I feel like I'm always really mean to him, that I don't do enough for him, and I have a hard time talking with him about stuff that matters," Suki frowns, giving up on hiding anything at this point," I mean seriously, I'm way too serious in comparison to him, I'm absolutely stubborn, I have a wicked temper, I'm extremely sarcastic about nearly everything, and honestly I still feel like I'm too selfish to honestly handle a relationship."

"I doubt you're that mean to him. If you are, its more tough love or giving him a taste of his own medicine than being evil to him. Also, you do plenty for that idiot. He wouldn't survive at this point if it wasn't for you making sure he didn't spend all of his money gambling and shopping, making sure he turns in his invention ideas on time so that he can get funding to create his prototypes, making sure he doesn't just gorge himself on meat and actually eats vegetables, and much more," Katara states.

"Also, since when _don't_ you have a hard time talking about stuff that matters or dealing with you in general. This whole conversation is enough proof of that," Mai adds, causing Suki to chuckle. Katara smiles, happy to see Suki in a happier mood again.

"As far as everything else goes, you aren't always serious. You've gotten less serious since you two first started dating and, if anything, you being serious helps that idiot be serious when he needs to be. You're stubbornness isn't always a bad thing. You only have a bad temper because you're so patient with people that all of your anger just adds up and explodes dramatically," Katara says, making Suki laugh, "You're sarcastic talking goes well with Sokka's to the point you two might as well be speaking a secret language only meant to be understood by a select few. And you are honestly one of the least selfish people I have met in my life.

"Why _do_ you even think you're selfish?" Mai asks in curiosity.

"I generally don't tell Sokka where I wonder off to and I end up worrying him to death because of it," Suki answers.

"He shouldn't be keeping track of your every move," Katara says.

"Not to that extent. I mean whenever I go off somewhere for weeks or months on end and forget to tell him I'm leaving and he doesn't know where I am until weeks later when I send a letter after remembering that I didn't tell him," Suki explains, "I'm so used to just going anywhere I want and doing whatever I want without telling anyone so I forget that I'll end up worrying that man when I up and leave for long periods of time."

"Well then, that's just something you have to work on. Did you tell him you would be here at the palace?" Katara asks. Suki stares into her wine glass, thinking hard about whether or not she'd told her lover of her plans to visit Mai.

"...I don't think I did...," Suki finally retorts, causing Katara and Mai to chuckle softly.

"Well, you have some work to do then," Mai comments. Mai is about to ask Suki where she even wonders off to during those long periods of time but Fu suddenly comes to the table, scaring the crap out of Katara in the process since the water bender hadn't noticed that Fu was nearby like Suki and Mai had.

"Would you like more drinks?" Fu asks.

"I think we're good on drinks for now, Fu. Could you bring some fruit tarts out though?" Mai asks. Fu nods in understanding, giving the Fire Lady a quick bow, and leaves to go retrieve the sweets. "Now then. Does Katara's little speech about how you are good for Sokka clear up your worries?" Mai asks Suki. Suki just chuckles, naturally still having her doubts.

"Let's talk about something else now, please," Suki says, discomfort with being the center of attention very obvious at this point.

"You always encourage us and give us advice whenever we need it so its your turn for once," Mai states.

"We're not leaving this table until you actually believe you'll be an awesome wife for Sokka," Katara suddenly announces, making Suki chuckle - hoping Katara was just kidding. She wasn't.

"How about instead of focusing on whether she'll be a good wife, just talk about why we're so sure that Sokka will make her his wife," Mai suggests, knowing that subject would take less time. Katara could easily talk about that considering Sokka always spoke nonstop about why he loved Suki so much and wanted to marry the Kyoshian girl in the future.

"We all already know that idiot is deeply in love with you to begin with," Katara remarks, frowning softly when she notices the incredulous look on Suki's face, "That idiot talks nonstop about the things he loves about you. I can guarantee everyone, including complete strangers, have had to sit through hour long talks of how much that man adores you. I could literally sit here and recite everything he loves about you. That's how much he talks about this!"

Suki chuckles, thinking Katara is over exaggerating.

"You think I'm kidding! I'm going to make you sit here and listen to what Sokka spouts out every time I see him. Actually, no I'm not. I'll give you the abbreviated version and hope that I finish before Fu comes out with the tarts."

Suki chuckles again waiting to see just what Katara was going to say.

* * *

"You're brave," Katara starts. She can't help but think about the stories Sokka told after saying just that one adjective, as if anyone really needed proof of just how courageous Suki could be.

_One second Sokka's sitting at a table for a diplomatic meeting, the next second he saw arrows flying towards other attendees of the meeting. He feels his heart beat faster when he notices an arrow flying towards himself. There wasn't enough time to dodge. Suddenly someone was pulling him down and he was hiding underneath the table. He looked around to see who had saved him before smiling when he sees the familiar white, red, and black face paint along with short auburn hair and violet eyes. Suki. __She motions for him to stay quiet and to stay below the table. She suddenly makes a move to get from underneath the table but Sokka grabs her hand, stopping her from going any further. He gives her a concerned look. She smiles before mouthing, "Don't worry. Just stay where its safe." Sokka frowns and mouths back, "Let me go with you." Suki shakes her head and whispers in his ear, "The person behind this is targeting everyone attending this meeting so that includes you. I can't guarantee your safety if you come with me so just stay here. The other warriors will be in here still to make sure no other attacks happen." Sokka frowns but Suki just smiles reassuringly. He wasn't stupid. He knew she was planning on chasing the would-be-assassin by herself and leaving her warriors here to make sure nothing happens to the meeting attendees. He sighs, gives her a quick kiss on the lips, and mouths, "Stay safe, please." Suki nods before pulling her hand away from Sokka and sneakily making her way from underneath the table. Sokka couldn't decide whether what she was doing was reckless or brave and it wasn't until the assassin was captured and he saw his Kyoshi Warrior safe and sound that he realized it was honestly both._

"You're smart, fair, and stubborn in a good way."

_"You're making a mistake! Mr. Kang is innocent! Kuo's the one that murdered Mr. Tai!" Suki yells at the Gaang, her patience was running low considering she had said this statement at least thirty times already but here they were, the court already being adjourned and Mr. Kang being sentence to prison for life despite having done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Suki was sure of it! _

_"Suki, all of the evidence points to Mr. Kang," Zuko states. _

_Mr. Tai was a nobleman from Omashu that had been helping make amends between Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation citizens that were currently fighting about the Fire Nation settlements still being in Earth Kingdom territory. Both Mr. Kang and Kuo were Fire Nation noblemen who were in support of keeping settlements up around the Earth Kingdom though Mr. Kang had been having second thoughts on the notion over that last few weeks leading up to Mr. Tai's murder and the current court ruling. _

_"Plus the court has already decided. They don't do retrials, Suki," Aang adds. Suki frowns, she refused to let an innocent man go to prison while the guilty party ran around freely._

_"Even if Kuo was the one that murdered Mr. Tai, why would Mr. Kang testify that he was the murderer?" Sokka asks, waiting for his girlfriend's answer._

_"He was being blackmailed. If he didn't testify, Kuo was planning to hurt his wife and two kids," Suki explains._

_"That still doesn't explain why the tea Mr. Kang gave to Mr. Tai was poisoned and why his knife was covered in blood," Sokka adds, "Or why he went through the trouble of both poisoning and stabbing ."_

_"Kuo poisoned the tea after Mr. Kang made it but before it was handed out. He was planning to poison Mr. Tai the whole time but - before Mr. Tai could get a chance to drink the tea - Kuo lost his temper, snatched Mr. Kang's knife, and stabbed Mr. Tai," Suki explains._

_"And how do you know that Mr. Tai didn't drink the tea and that the stabbing wasn't just what happened when the poison wasn't working fast enough for the murderer?" One of the judges of the court, suddenly walks up behind Suki. She turns around before continuing her explanation._

_"I've worked for Mr. Tai so I know that he always drinks his tea with two sugar cubes and milk and won't drink any of the tea until they are in there. No matter what kind tea it is. He was always particular about it. Sure, I wouldn't be able to tell if the sugar cubes were in the drink without tasting it but the tea would have been a lighter shade if the milk had been poured in but it was the same shade as the tea Kuo and Mr. Kang had. Neither of them drink their tea with any extra ingredients so its safe to compare their tea with Mr. Tai's. There is a good chance that Mr. Tai didn't even get a chance to drink from his cup."_

_"How do you know the way in which Mr. Kang and Kuo prepare their tea as well and how do you know what the tea looked like at the crime scene?"_

_"I was working with all three men until the incident so that we could get this whole Earth Kingdom-Fire Nation territory problem settled and I tend to notice small things all of the time like how people prepare their tea for some reason. I was also one of the people in the building when Mr. Tai was found dead considering I was supposed to meet up with the three men that afternoon but was running later than I would have liked due to another engagement. That is why I was able to see the crime scene and more specifically notice the tea."_

_"That explains the poisoned tea but how can you prove that Kuo was the one who stabbed Mr. Tai and not Mr. Kang. Mr Kang was the one that prepared the tea and his knife was the murder weapon so its only natural that all evidence points to him. Also, there's a possibility that Mr. Kang and Kuo worked together, is there not?" _The judge asks, interested in what Suki has to say after her explanation of what happened with the tea.

_"I can't completely prove it. All I can say is that Mr. Kang said so himself when I ran into him that afternoon while the local police were looking around the crime scene but he suddenly started saying other wise days after the incident, which I found suspicious. There's a possibility that he was blackmailed by Kuo after the day of the murder."_

_"How do we know that Mr. Kang was being blackmail and that that this is not just some way of getting himself out of trouble?" _

_"Mr. Kang very subtly admitted to me that he had received a threatening letter from Kuo but he refused to turn it in as evidence, despite my suggestion for him to do so, because of what kind of threats Kuo was sending him. As far as making sure Kuo was the one that really wrote the letter, if we can get Mr. Kang to give us the letter, we can compare it to something else Kuo has written to see if the penmanship matches. Also, I found it strange that Mr. Kang didn't report what he confessed to me on the day of the murder as well so there is a possibility that verbal threats started immediately after the murder or right when local police arrived and more threats were sent in the form of a letter later on."_

_"I'll send someone to go talk to Mr. Kang into giving local police the letter and have someone get another parchment written on by Kuo. If you're making this up you'll be in trouble, so I'll ask this despite you're very detailed argument: Are you sure?"_

_"Yes sir."_

_A couple of days later a new trial was ran, resulting in Kuo being sent to prison and Mr. Kang being released._

_"Thank you so much Miss Suki," Mr. Kang thanks the Kyoshi warrior again for the hundredth time._

_"It's no problem. I hate seeing innocent people being accused for things they didn't do, though it was courageous of you to put your family before yourself," Suki replies before exchanging respectful bows with the Fire Nation nobleman._

_"If you ever need some work or any help, just send me a letter and I'll be happy to be of service to you," Mr. Kang says as he leaves the room where the trial was being held._

_"Damn. You were right...I didn't think Kuo would bother going through enough trouble to set up Mr. Kang that much. He poisoned the tea Mr. Kang made and - even in his anger - thought to used Mr. Kang's knife to make it seem like there wasn't even anybody else that could be suspected of the murder," Zuko mutters, still trying to get his thoughts together from the last few days. The judge that spoke with Suki a few days prior walks up to her._

_"If it hadn't been for you, an innocent man would have been separated from his family and a guilty one would be roaming free. I'm not sure how I would have felt if things hadn't been corrected. Thank you for your hard work," the judge says, bowing respectfully to Suki. Suki becomes flustered at being thanked again, but she bows to the judge in response._

_"If anything, thank you for believing me, taking the steps necessary to prove Mr. Kang's innocence, and doing a retrial despite such a thing being unheard of," Suki states._

_"It's not a problem, young lady. Though, I do have a single question. Why didn't you tell any of the local police what you told me?"_

_"I did but they didn't believe me no matter how many times I told them especially since Kuo was telling them a whole different story. Who would believe an Earth Kingdom peasant over a Fire Nation nobleman?"_

_"The credibility of someone shouldn't be weighted by their societal status. I might need to make sure each an every local officer understands that from now on. But, nonetheless, everything ended well thanks to you."_

"You're loyal."

_"Come on, beautiful. I could give you any dress, any jewelry, and as much money as you want. Just be my bride."_

_Suki was currently being courted by an Earth Kingdom nobleman's son, much to her annoyance, as she sat down waiting for her boyfriend to return. They were attending another gala in the Earth Kingdom and Suki wasn't having a very good time considering she was being hit on way too much and her lover was being stolen from her every five seconds by gorgeous women hoping to get a dance or simply talk with him. Sokka was close enough to her to hear the conversation she was having but, because he was currently having to entertain another woman, he couldn't step into help her from the situation that was unfolding._

_"I'm not really into those kinds of things...," Suki frowns. She couldn't understand why he wouldn't back off. There wasn't anything particularly special enough about her to attract his attention so why was he here? On top of that, she finds herself annoyed that the man assumed that she only had interest in how much money he had and nothing else. His assumption that his title and position made him irresistible to women also peeved her off. Suki hated guys like him._

_"Oh? Then isn't getting to marry a man like me good enough? You're social status would soar. You'll live in big house, have servants, eat any food you wanted, and never have to lift a finger. Everything could be done for you and you'd practically be marrying a prince to top it all off," he continues, still trying to win Suki over._

_"I'd much rather marry the prince I'm currently dating even if his official title isn't 'prince'," Suki gets up at that point and makes her way over to where Sokka was. She'd had enough of that jackass. Sokka smiles as Suki gets closer to him, forgetting all about the woman he was speaking with. The woman seems to notice his sudden shift an interest and decides just to take her leave._

_"Hey beautiful. Saw you being courted relentlessly over there. I almost grabbed a glass of champagne, walked over there, and threw the whole glass at him," Sokka says, glaring at the man who had been sweet talking Suki earlier. Suki can't help but laugh._

_"Not the whole glass. Just dump the champagne. There's no need to send him to a medic so late at night."_

_"You're too kind."_

_Suki laughs again before kissing Sokka fully on the lips. He happily wraps his arms around her waist not caring that other people could probably see them._

_"So, why didn't you take his offer? You'd be set for life. I could never give you a life like that," Sokka suddenly frowns._

_"Well maybe I don't want a life like that. I'm perfectly happy with the life I'm living, the way its going, and the person in front of me right now," Suki retorts, giving her boyfriend another kiss on the lips._

_Sokka smiles, "Wanna leave this damned place?"_

_"Hell yeah."_

"You're caring."

_"Hi, little one," Suki coos," Are you lost?"_

_Sokka and Suki had been walking through town when they saw a little girl crying in the middle of the street. She wasn't with anyone which made Suki worry so, despite Sokka's belief that her mother would come back sooner or later, Suki decided to go help the young child._

_"I c-can't find m-my mommy," the little girl sobs._

_"Do you remember where she went last?" Suki asks._

_"S-she w-was buying a-apples b-but I saw a butterfly a-and I c-chased it here. N-now I c-can't find my m-mommy," the toddler explains through her tears._

_"Maybe you shouldn't have ran off," Sokka mutters under his breath, earning a glare from Suki._

_"She was buying apples, right? There were some stalls further back that have apples so why don't we go see if she is at one of them, okay?" Suki asks. The girl nods her head before taking a hold of one of Suki's hands. Suki starts walking with the little girl back towards the stalls that sold fruit. Suki glances back, without stopping, when she notices her boyfriend not following. She gives him a look that read "Are you coming?" before facing forward again and continuing on her way. Sokka sighs before smiling softly at his girlfriend's kindness towards total strangers. She was totally screwing up his tightly packed schedule for their date but Suki couldn't stand by when someone needed help. He quickly catches up with her and the little girl so they can quickly reunited the child with her mother and continue their date._

"You're encouraging."

_Sokka was currently standing in his workroom, where he generally built and created a good majority of his inventions. Sokka sighs. He hasn't been able to think of any new invention ideas in forever and he hasn't made any progress with the one's he'd been working on. Was his creativity running dry? He jumps when a pair of arms suddenly encircle his torso._

_"Sorry. Did I scare you?" Suki asks.  
_

_"A bit. I was zoned out," Sokka retorts. Suki frowns at the stressed expression on her lover's face. It wasn't a look she often saw from her goofy, fun-loving boyfriend._

_"What's wrong?"_

_"I can't think of any new ideas for inventions or move forward with any of the one's I've already started."_

_"I see."_

_"Maybe I'm all out of ideas and I'll never invent anything ever again!" Sokka exclaims, suddenly freaking out. Suki holds him tighter._

_"Calm down, darling. I highly doubt that you're out of ideas or that you'll never invent anything again. Maybe you just need some rest. You've been working hard for the past three weeks straight so you're brain is probably just tired."_

_"Rest, huh?" Sokka sighs._

_"Yeah. Relax for a little while so you can clear your head a bit then try working again. I'm sure you'll get another idea before you know it."_

_Sokka smiles and unwraps his girlfriend's arms from around his torso so that they can stand face-to-face, before kissing his girlfriend softly. They break away after a couple of seconds. Sokka makes his way out of the room but not without first tugging Suki along with him._

_"Where are we going?"_

_"To my room to take a nap," Sokka retorts._

_"I don't really need to take a nap," Suki says._

_"You're funny, Miss I haven't slept properly in the last three weeks because I've been taking both nighttime and daytime guard shifts at the Ba Sing Sae Palace," Sokka states, continuing to pull his girlfriend to his bedroom._

_"That nickname is too damn long," Suki mumbles._

_"Hahaha. Come on. You need to sleep too, baby."_

"And there's soooo much more hat idiot loves about you but Fu is coming out with the tarts and I really want one of them so we will put the rest of the list on hold for right now," Katara finishes, watching Fu make her way to the table with a tray full of desserts.

"No," Suki smiles softly, " I don't think you really need to go on..."

"Do you finally believe Sokka honestly loves you enough to want a future with you?" Mai asks.

Suki nods gently, a smile still playing on her lips. She hadn't realized that he honestly talked about her that much or loved her enough to talk about her so much to begin with. Maybe she should be selfish again and just marry the guy before he does manage to find someone who would be a better wife for him.

* * *

**So there were a lot of things I wanted to incorporate into this chapter: a girl's night, how close I think the female Gaang member have gotten with each other, Suki doubting whether she should marry Sokka, positive sides of Suki's personality, and then side stories that I ended up adding to this chapter either because they were too short for me to really make their own chapter or because it went along well with the personality trait I wanted to present.**

**I hope you enjoyed~**

**Leave a comment if you would like.**


	30. Bending (Part 1)

**Long time no see. School has officially started back up again so I've been kinda busy! Anyways, I've been working on this piece for a while and I just couldn't seem to get the whole thing the way I wanted. The original piece was just going to be separated into three separate stories but be in the same chapter. I ended up deciding just to split each section into a chapter so here is the first part! Enjoy~**

* * *

"Stop it, Kyoshi! I can't see if you keep splashing me!" Hakoda screams, his voice giving away the fact that he was close to crying. The two, five year olds were currently bathing with the help of their mother, so that they could get ready for bed.

"Kyoshi, darling. Stop splashing your brother, please," Suki says calmly, after helping her son wipe the water, that was splashed at him, away from his eyes. Kyoshi frowns but suddenly smiles. Suki lifts an eyebrow before turning around to see what her daughter is smiling about.

"Daddy!" Kyoshi yells excitedly. Hakoda and Suki both smile as well.

"I'm back!" Sokka grins, quite happy about the warm welcome. Suki gets up from where she was kneeling beside the bath tub, in order to greet her husband with a hug.

"You were at work late. Did something come up?" Suki asks. Kyoshi and Hakoda continue talking and playing with a toy boat, that their father made for them, as they wait for their mother to come back to help them wash. Suki didn't particularly trust those two to actually wash themselves just yet. The last time she trusted them with the task of washing themselves, the two of them just filled the bathtub with water but sat outside of the bathtub and played. They even claimed that they were bathing when Suki called out to them from the kitchen and asked if they were in the tub. She honestly had to keep an eye on the clever duo.

"One of the councilmen had to leave early because his wife was suddenly rushed to the hospital. His work was split up amongst the rest of the council members so I had to finish some of his work on top of my own," Sokka sighs, "Don't get me wrong though. I hope his wife gets well soon. Anyways, where's Yue and Hiroyuki?"

Suki is about to answer when the twins suddenly start arguing about something again. She looks over her shoulder to see what's happening but the two of them seemed to have settled whatever disagreement two, five year olds could possibly be having, by the time she does look over at them. Suki allows herself to turn her attention back to her husband, who is chuckling at the twins. Fighting one second, adorably getting along the next.

"Yue is in her room reading a new book she got from the library and Hiroyuki is already fast asleep," Suki informs him.

"I see. So-"

"Nuh-uh!" Kyoshi suddenly yells.

"Uh-huh!" Hakoda retorts, "You broke it!"

"I didn't break it! You broke it!"

"Nuh-uh!" Kyoshi yells again before splashing her brother in the face for the second time that night. At this point, Sokka and Suki are both looking at them, about to calmed them down when Hakoda suddenly does something that shocks all of them.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO SPLASH WATER IN MY FACE!" Hakoda yells. At the same time, the water in the bathtub suddenly freezes, causing Kyoshi to scream.

"MOMMY!" Kyoshi screams, as tears fall down her face, "IT'S COLD!"

Sokka and Suki can't help but stare at Hakoda for a couple of seconds, trying to fully process the fact that the water had just froze over. Suki snaps out of it and rushes over to Hakoda, in order to calm him down and see if she can get him to defrost the water in the tub. Considering the water only froze once he became angry, its possible that Hakoda was the one who turned the water into ice. Despite being upset and angry a few seconds ago, Hakoda now seemed frightened by the water suddenly becoming a solid.

"It's okay, darling. Calm down," Suki smiles. Suki looks over at Sokka, motioning for him to help Kyoshi settle down while she talks to Hakoda. Sokka does so immediately, telling Kyoshi jokes until she is smiling again.

"There's no need to be afraid, little one," Suki continues, trying to assuage Hakoda's worrying. She hugs him tighly, nuzzling his head to her chest lovingly. Hakoda hugs her back. The bath water starts to melt as Hakoda calms down, before finally returning to its original liquid form.

"See. You did it, Koda," Suki smiles, kissing her son's temple. Hakoda lets go of his mother quietly, only to start crying again. He throws himself at Kyoshi, hugging her and spewing out apologizes.

"It's okay, Koda! That was awesome! Can you do it again? When I'm not in the tub with you though," Kyoshi responds, hugging him back.

Suki and Sokka can't help but smile at the twins before looking at each other again. They would have to go talk to Katara about possibly getting her to teach Hakoda waterbending. If that's what he wanted to do, of course.

"If you really want to apologize though. Just admit that you broke the boat," Kyoshi suddenly says, after letting Hakoda go.

"But I didn't!"

Suki and Sokka can't help but smack their foreheads with the palm of their hands. They had a feeling that the love and warmth between the twins wouldn't last long, not after the water in the tub suddenly became ice cold thanks to a broken toy.


	31. Bending (Part 2)

**Sorry that its been like forever since I posted a chapter. 1) School has been kicking my butt so I had to put all of my attention into that so I wouldn't flunk out! 2) I really could not think of how I wanted to end this for the life of me! **

**Anyways, this deals with the same topic as the last chapter: Bending. Enjoy~**

* * *

"Follow daddy, little ones," Suki instructed her her four kids as the family made their way through the corridors of the Republic City Council Hall. Today wasn't particularly special, just another soiree that Sokka was required to attend and one of the few that the kids were allowed to join in as well. The family finally arrived to one of the ballrooms tucked away in the northern wing of the Council Hall and made their entrance. They were greeted immediately with familiar faces, all of which had smiles plastered on their face, though they varied in their degree of sincerity.

"Yue!" a young girl calls out, running over to the oldest half Water tribe half Kyoshian girl.

"Hi Shizuki," Yue bows respectfully. Shizuki quickly returns the formality before pulling Yue off to talk and hang out during the evening. Sokka and Suki turn to their three other children, giving each of them a kiss on their foreheads and telling them to come look for the pair if they needed something or just wanted to stay with them, before dismissing themselves to socializing with the other adults.

"So what do you guys wanna do?" Kyoshi asks her brothers. Both of them shrug, staring blankly at the sea of people moving around the ballroom. Kyoshi sighs, mentally counting down the hours until she could get out of stupid dress she was in. She only wore it because Hiroyuki, who has noticeably been showing interest in fashion and dressing up people- -even at the age of 4, had chosen it for her. He had also chosen their mother's dress for tonight and Kyoshi had to admit that their mother looked even more beautiful than usual tonight. Why didn't see look as pretty? Kyoshi shook her head of the thought, knowing that she shouldn't compare people's looks. Plus Kyoshi was her mother's daughter. Even if she didn't look as ravishing as her mother just yet she was bound to at some point.

"Mama. Papa," Hiroyuki whispers softly, slowly looking around to find their parents before making his way to them. The nine year old twins watch him, making sure he makes it to their parents safely and without any trouble. They only allow themselves to stop watching once their mother picks the four year up and balances the toddler on her hip, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Now what?" Kyoshi asks. Hakoda again shrugs, earning him a smack on his arm from his sister. He rubs his arm gently, throwing a small frown at her.

"Do you want to leave?" Kyoshi suggests.

"I don't think Mama and Papa would be okay with that."

"You're right," Kyoshi sighs.

"...Um. Hi..."

The twins turn around to find a raven haired girl standing alone in a frilly red dress. Her hair was separated into two braids and a red bow graced the top of her head. Despite having several characteristics that seemed normal for Fire Nation denizen, the young girl had ice blue eyes, that reminded the twins of their father and other siblings' eye color.

"Hi...," Hakoda replies shyly.

"Do you mind if I possibly...stay with you two...?" the girl asks timidly.

"Uh...sure...we aren't really doing anything though so you might get bored," Kyoshi retorts.

"That's fine. I just don't really want to stand by myself and I can't seem to find my parents."

"Okay. What's your name?" Hakoda questions, trying to seem as friendly as possible since the raven haired girl seemed quite uncomfortable.

"Natsumi. I'm 10. What are your names?"

"I'm Hakoda and this is my twin sister Kyoshi. We're both 9," Hakoda introduced.

"I can introduce myself you know," Kyoshi mutters, crossing her arms and pouting, earning an eye roll from her brother.

"Twins?" Natsumi repeats, looking back and forth between the two.

"Yeah, we don't look alike but we were born at the same time. I was born first though," Hakoda smirks, earning a look from Kyoshi.

"If I had known as a yet-to-be-born child that you would rub that in my face all of the time, I would have kicked you to the side so I could get out first," Kyoshi says, causing Natsumi to giggle.

"You two are so cute! It makes me wish I had a sibling," Natsumi states, seeming a lot more comfortable with the twins after getting to witness their closeness.

"Believe me, you don't want any," Kyoshi mutters, "so you're an only child?"

"Yeah."

"What's it like?"

"...I mean...I get whatever I want. My parents only have to take care of me so I don't have to share attention with other people, unless you count their business associates or fellow coucilmen," Natsumi starts, "and when they are having to attend to their business partners I'm pretty much home alone..."

Kyoshi and Hakoda blink a few times.

"Sorry, I made the mood go sour...," Natsumi bows in apology.

Kyoshi and Hakoda look at each other before giving each other a hug and thinking: _You annoy me but I'm never lonely with you around_.

"Hey Hakoda!"

The male twin turns around to towards the person calling him and sees a group of five boys waving at him. The group walks towards him and greets up with playful punches, high-fives, and noogies.

"Let's hang out!" Noritaka, one of the boys suggest, "you're bored too right?"

"Yeah, we were just trying to find something to do too."

"Let's ditch," Koji, another boy, suggests.

"I don't think our parents will be okay with that," Hakoda says, glancing at the two girls beside him.

"Do you do everything your parents tell you to?"

"Well..."

"Oh come on Koda! What's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

The twins, Natsumi, and group of boys walk around inside of the Council Hall Building, trying their best to remember how they even got to the ballroom they were originally at. The kids walked for a while. Making rights and lefts, stopping, and retracing their steps in hopes of finding a way out of the building.

"This buildings like a maze!" Aito, one of Hakoda's friends, says in both annoyance and amazement.

"I know right, " Eito, Aito's younger brother, responds, "by the time we find our way out, the party will have ended."

"Not if I can help it!," Itsuo, yet another of Hakoda's friends, remarks before running down the hall to find the nearest exit. He finds one after a while and runs back to the group.

"I...I found...one," Itsuo huffs, trying to catch his breath before leading everyone towards the exit he found.

"Nice. You did actually find an exit. I thought you were just pretending, " Noritaka states, earning a laugh from Koji. Noritaka opens the door only to find a rather buff man standing on the other end of the door. He was holding a sword. He didn't seem to be a guard since he wasn't wearing the uniform. In fact, his clothing was a rich brown aside from the few steaks of red, that the kids immediately recognized as blood. Noritaka quickly tries to close the door but the man grabs it and forces it open in order to get in.

"Someone get one of the guards!" Koji yells. Right as Koji finishes that statement the man grabs hold of Noritaka and holds the sword to his neck.

"If you go get the guard, this one dies," he roars, "Now listen here kiddos. I don't want to hurt you so just do exactly as I say."

The kids look at each other before looking back at the scary man. The nod their head in understanding knowing quite well that they didn't really have any other options than to listen to the man.

"Good. Now take me to the ballroom that is holding the party for tonight."

* * *

The group of kids yet again found themselves wondering the halls but they were definitely not as giddy about doing so this time. The scary man walked behind them along with two of his associates that he had retrieved not long after talking the kids into leading them to the ballroom. Hakoda looked around him to see how everyone was doing. Kyoshi wore a frown on her face, Natsumi seemed close to tears, Noritaka was still pale from his close encounter with the buff man's sword, Itsuo was noticeably shaking, Koji was fiddling with something in his pocket, and Eito and Aito walked closely together- -holding hands.

"...M-mister...I think...w-we might b-be lost...," Itsuo admits, the kids could barely navigate their way to an exit so it shouldn't be surprising that they couldn't find the ballroom again.

"Useless kids," one of the man's associates mutters before walking ahead of Itsuo to look for the ballroom herself. She suddenly stops in her tracks before grabbing Natsumi by the wrist and pulling the young girl along with her.

"Why do you need the kid?" the other associate asks.

"Insurance, just in case guards come," she retorts before continuing to walk forward. She doesn't make it far before she stops again, this time by a tug at her shirt.

"Take me with you instead. Natsumi's being a bit of a cry baby so she might be a bit annoying if she starts blubbering, right?" Kyoshi suggests.

Natsumi looked like she was going to faint at any point and Kyoshi wasn't quite sure if the older lady would treat Natsumi too kindly if she caused too much trouble.

"Hmm," the older woman looks at Natsumi- -whose tears have started running down her face, "You've got a point kid." The older woman lets go of Natsumi before grabbing hold of Kyoshi's arm.

"Kyo!" Hakoda yells, about to chase after her but he is blocked off by the buff man.

"Now now now. Stay here and follow our instructions. As long as she does what she is told she _probably_ won't be hurt."

Hakoda clenches his fists.

"I'll be fine, Koda. I promise," Kyoshi says calmly before walking along with the older woman to find the ballroom.

"We're going to just wait here until she comes back," the buff man commands.

Hakoda frowns before sitting down the floor. All he could do was wait.

* * *

It doesn't take long for Kyoshi and the older woman to return.

"The ballroom is a couple of halls down. We ran into a couple of guards as well but I took care of them," the female associate of the buff man reports.

Hakoda looks at Kyoshi, trying to make sure she was okay. The female twin wore a blank facial expression but doesn't seem to be hurt in anyway.

"Very good. Let's contact the others and then we will move on with the rest of our plans."

_The others__? _Hakoda thinks. _This is bad! We shouldn't have opened that stupid door! All of the doors are locked for a reason!_

Within twenty minutes, at least thirty people made their way into the Council Hall building to help execute whatever plan the buff man had up his sleeve.

"Everyone is in position General Raiden. We are just waiting for your signal," the female associate reports. The buff man- -General Raiden- -nods in understanding.

"Time to go see your parents, kiddos," he says before having the kids walk to the ballroom door.

"Natsumi was your name, right?" the female associate asks, the raven haired girl. She nods, tears still streaming down her face. "Will you be a dear and open the door for us then Natsumi?"

Natsumi hesitates before opening the door slowly.

"Who are-," the guards start to say before noticing that its just Natsumi but they quickly pull out their weapons when they look through the door and notice General Raiden and his entourage. Before they can attack though, the guards are quickly knocked out by the female associate.

"What is the meaning of this?" one of the councilmen yells after hearing the commotion at the ballroom entrance. The yelling catches the attention of the remaining councilmen and their families. An uneasy chatter fills the room at the sight of the group of soldiers and the fearful children alongside them.

"Aito!? Eito?," another councilman yells, "What are you doing with my sons? I demand that they be returned to me at once!"

"Tsk tsk tsk. Council man Shunsuke! Is that anyway to ask for something?," General Raiden responds. "There are much better ways to ask for things. Such as the way I'm about to employ."

Soldiers surround the kids, grabbing each of them and holding a weapon up to them.

"Either give me what I ask of or the children die," he commands. More soldiers enter the room, grabbing other children from around the room and bringing them to the front. A couple of woman could be heard screaming and trying to fight the soldiers while others fainted at the turn of events.

"What do you want?," Councilman Tadaaki asks. General Raiden claps his hands together twice and the female associate walks towards Councilman Taadaki with a list of demands. Taadaki snatches the list earning a scowl from the woman who handed it to him.

"And what if we choose not to comply with every single one of these demands of yours?" Taadaki asks, after reading the list. He hands the list over to Councilman Tatsuo who was standing beside him.

"Like I said, the children die. To be honest, I originally had planned for the alternative to be that the councilmen in here will die but I have these children to thank for giving me the brilliant of idea of using them after they happened to open one of the doors to the Council Hall Building."

Whispers circle around the room.

"How about instead of killing all of the children for us not being willing to comply to all of your demands, the ones who are at fault for this current situation will be compensation for the unfulfilled requests? You may do as you wish with them so to say," Tatsuo suggests.

Another commotion breaks out.

"Even if they opened the door, I doubt they knew someone would be on the other side of it waiting to get inside!" Koji's mother explains.

"I agree!" several other parents around the room holler.

"Children must learn the consequences of their actions and there's no guarantee that they will be killed!" Tatsuo continues.

"Learning from their mistakes is fine but you're sending them to their demise by making such a suggestion," Sokka remarks.

"I know that you would think so given two of your children are amongst the group that opened the door."

"Yes, having two of my children being included in that group does make me a biased towards not wanting to go along with your suggestion but lets be logical here. What evidence do we have saying he won't kill them if we went with your idea? His original threat was that he would kill them along with the other kids! Do you have any reasoning to believe they would honestly be safe!"

"Enough! Arguing will get us nowhere!" Councilman Noriko- -Itsuo's father- -interrupts before Tatsuo could continue, "Lets just accept his demands!"

"You didn't even read the damned list and you want to just accept them?" Taadaki asked.

"What else can we do? I'm not willing to put my child's life in danger!" Noriko exclaims.

"You act as if you can't have another child! You're willing to give over the order of this entire city for some children!" Tatsuo pipes in again.

"You wouldn't understand since you don't have any kids of your own!" Sokka glares at Tatsuo, shutting him up.

"All you have to do is have all of the councilmen sign at the bottom of the list and we'll let the kids go," General Raiden says, a sly smirk appearing on his face.

* * *

Each of the councilmen take turns reading over the list before signing. Everyone noticeably has the same grave look on their face after reading the list and before signing. Many of the councilmen find themselves having to look over at their captured children before feeling motivated enough to sign the page. Five councilmen have yet to sign the list, silently waiting for their turn. Sokka looks over at a nearby clock before looking over towards the ballroom door. _Where is she?_ Sokka can't help but think. He lets his eyes look back over towards one of the windows at the end of the ballroom. They had been lucky that the ballroom was on the first story. Suki was able to get out along with Hiroyuki in order to go get back up. There weren't enough people in this room that could fight for them to take on General Raiden, so Sokka was having to hope Suki would comeback soon with guards from the one of the other wings of the council hall before he signed the list of demands. He purposefully made sure he would be last in line for that very reason. He'd buy more time if necessary. Sokka looks back over at the ballroom door, this time to look at his kids. Yue was holding Hakoda and Kyoshi as close to her as possible. Sokka couldn't help but feel proud of all three of them for staying calm during this situation. Sokka continues looking at the door, having noticed something else. There were less soldiers than there was originally. _Did they leave or did something happen?_

"Almost everyone has signed. Umeko, have all of the children except for the original little group released," General Raiden commands. The female associate- -Umeko- -relays his command immediately and the children flock to their parents. Yue lingers by the twins before being pushed forward by one of the soldiers.

"Get going, kid," he grumbles. Sokka runs over to Yue to help her up, glaring at the solider as he does so.

"Back in line please, Councilman Sokka. You have yet to sign yet, correct?" the soldier commands. Sokka throws him another look before walking back to the corner of the ballroom that was being used for signing the damned list. Sokka lets himself look back at the door again noticing that the number of soldiers had yet again dwindled.

"They keep disappearing," Yue whispers to her father. She had apparently noticed the same thing. Before Sokka knew it, he heard Councilman Noriko yelling," Kids, get down!" The soldiers holding the kids hostage turn towards the door and the kids escape while the soldiers are distracted. Multiple guards enter the ballroom engaging in battle with the soldiers.

"I thought you said there were no nearby guards Umeko?" Raiden booms.

"There were none when I completed the original search sir," Umeko responds.

"Then where did they come from?"

"I don't-" Umeko's sentence is cut off when she moves to dodge a pair of fans. One nicks the side of her neck but she doesn't seem fazed.

"Mama!" Kyoshi and Hakoda shout in unison. Suki looks at the twins and flashes a smile before returning her attention back to Umeko.

"Chief Suki. What a pleasant surprise. I've always wanted to fight you," Umeko says, getting into a fighting stance and reaching for her sword.

"Well it seems that you're about to get your chance to do so," Suki retorts before lunging forward.

The few councilmen who could fight make their way over to help take care of the soldiers and General Raiden.

"Grab as many of the kids as you can and get out! We'll use 'em for ransom if we need to!," Raiden commands his soldiers.

The kids do their best to escape. One soldier grabs Kyoshi but she manages to slip out of his clutches. Unfortunately, Hakoda and Natsumi weren't so lucky. Two soldiers drag the two kids down the hall towards the nearest exit.

"Sokka! Hakoda's-," Suki yells about to go get him herself but she is blocked off by Umeko.

"On it!" Sokka retorts about to make his way out the door when a soldier blocks his path. Without thinking Kyoshi rushes out the door to follow Hakoda and Natsumi.

"Kyoshi?!" Sokka yells, about to stop her but he is yet again cut off from the door, "Shit! Why are there so many of you guys?"

Kyoshi runs through the hall, chasing after the two soldiers, her brother, and new friend.

The soldiers stop in the their tracks once the exit the building, realizing that the door lead to a courtyard rather than an exit.

"Let them go!" Kyoshi yells at the two soldiers once she reaches the closed off area as well. She blocks the exit when she notices that it was the only door they could possibly escape through.

"What are you going to do about it? You're just a little girl," the soldiers mock. At the moment, Natsumi kicks the solider holding her in the shin and Hakoda bites the arm of the the soldier holding him.

"You little brats!"

One soldier pushes Natsumi to the ground while the other punches Hakoda in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him for a couple of seconds. Hakoda curls up on the ground holding his stomach and the soldier pulls out a knife and walks towards Hakoda again.

"I'm done playing games kid," he says about to attack the male twin.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Kyoshi yells, anger making her blood boil. Seconds after Kyoshi yells, several rock hits the soldier on his head and torso, one of which managed to to hit the hand holding his knife, knocking it out of the way.

"How dare you throw rocks at me!" the soldier yells. _Throw rocks? I didn't throw any? _Kyoshi thinks, looking down at her hands before suddenly realizing what might be happening or- -better yet- -what she was doing. She finds herself closing her eyes and trying to think about what her Aunt Toph had taught her before getting into a stable stance.

"You lit-" before he can finish his sentence, a pillar of earth shoots out and launches him up in the air. Hakoda, still crouched, looks over at the unconscious soldier in shock before turning his head in another direction when he hears a scream. Natsumi was still in trouble. Hakoda tries to get up but can't seem to move and Kyoshi just couldn't seem to move fast enough to help her. Out of seemingly nowhere, a boomerang comes flying out, knocking the soldier out, before returning to its owner.

"Daddy!" Kyoshi running over to her father and hugging him.

"Kyoshi, that was a dangerous decision to just run off on your own!" Sokka scolds, making Kyoshi pout slightly. "But I'm glad you, Hakoda, and your little friend are safe so I suppose its okay." Sokka hugs Kyoshi back quickly before checking on Hakoda and Natsumi.

"Are either of you hurt?" Sokka asks.

"No sir," Natsumi whispers before looking at Hakoda, who was still clutching his stomach on the ground. Hakoda gets up slowly, still trying to catch his breathe before saying, "I'm fine." Sokka gives him a doubtful look before crotching down with his back turn to Hakoda. Hakoda gives him a confused look, to which Sokka just pats his back indicating for Hakoda to get on. Hakoda blinks a couple of times, still seeming to not register what his father wanted, so Kyoshi and Natsumi help him get on to Sokka's back. Sokka carries Hakoda back to the ballroom with Kyoshi and Natsumi following suit.

Once they reach the ballroom they notice quite a few officers from the Republic City Police Force arresting Raiden and his gang. Sokka walks into the ballroom and is immediately greeted by his concerned wife.

"Hakoda? What happened darling? Are you all okay? You didn't get hurt, right?" Suki asks, not giving herself a chance to breathe in between questions. Sokka puts Hakoda down by the wall of the ballroom so that his son could rest.

"Were fine mama. Hakoda just got the wind knocked out of him... He'll be fine right?" Kyoshi asks, before looking over at Hakoda again wtih a concern look of her own. Hakoda notices this before giving her a thumbs up and a weak smile.

"So, everything taken care of?" Sokka asks, looking around at the soldiers that were still being arrested.

"It seems like it...," Suki replies.

"Yue and Hiroyuki?" Sokka asks. Suki cocks her head to left, indicating that the two kids were literally only a few meters away. Sokka smiles.

"You okay?" Sokka asks, though he knew quite well that his wife wouldn't tell him if something was wrong at that moment- - not with the kids around and not without him continuously asking if she was telling the truth.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be better once we leave," Suki admits, "I'm going to go see if Toph needs help with anything." Suki walks away, leaving Sokka with the twins and Natsumi.

Sokka sighs before looking over at Hakoda to see if he was doing okay. The boy still seemed rather out of it but his breathing was noticeably normal again. He looks over at the girls next. Natsumi seemed like she was about to cry again while Kyoshi wore a rather bored expression until she noticed her dad looking at her. She smiles. Sokka rustles her hair before sigh and asking, "So what happened with the door, exactly?"

Kyoshi's smile immediately disappears.

"Kyoshi...," Sokka gives her a pointed look, his normally joking side nowhere to be found.

"We wanted to go out for a little while while the party was happening because we were bored and at first we could figure out how to get out but one of Hakoda's friends finally found a door and we all tried to leave but-," Kyoshi explains, not taking a break to breathe in between words because of how nervous she was- - another habit she seemed to have pick up from her mother.

"Raiden was on the other side...," Sokka sighs again. Kyoshi nods her head in agreement. "Okay. Thank you for telling me. There's no need to worry so much. You didn't do anything wrong," Sokka says, trying to calm his daughter down before turning to look at Natsumi and Hakoda, "Neither did you guys. You didn't know he was going to be there so don't worry so much." Kyoshi hugs her father again.

"Natsumi! Are you okay?" Councilman Taadaki runs over to the 10 year old before checking the girl for injuries.

"I'm fine daddy," Natsumi says, sniffling softly.

"You need to be more careful. You could have gotten hurt."

"I'm sorry."

Taadaki sighs, "It's okay. As long as your safe, it's okay." Taadaki turns around, finally taking note of Sokka and Kyoshi before giving an understanding smile, "Let's go get your mother and return home now, shall we?" Natsumi nods in agreement before beginning to walk away with her father. She stops suddenly before turning around and yelling, "Bye Kyoshi! Bye Hakoda! I hope I can see you two again!" Taadaki smiles again before beginning to walk towards his wife again.

"Hey dad...," Hakoda says weakly, finally speaking after the clash with the soldiers. Sokka and Kyoshi separate before joining Hakoda agains the wall.

"What's up, bud?" Sokka asks.

"Guess what Kyoshi did earlier?"

"What?"

"Earthbend. Isn't that cool?"

Sokka blinks a couple of times before Hakoda's words settle in.

"She did huh? That is pretty cool. I guess we have to tell Aunt Toph. She keeps telling your mother and I that she could sense Kyo was going to be an earthbender," Sokka smiles, giving his daughter a kiss on the top of her head.

"That explains why she made me practice earthbending stances last time I visited her," Kyoshi giggles.

"Wait until mom hears about this," Sokka chuckles.

* * *

**Yay! Hopefully this isn't too boring or vague. I didn't have enough creativity in me at the time to actually figure out what Raiden's goal with this would be but it seems like this chapter turned out well anyways.**

**I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to comment and stuff!**


	32. Bending (Part 3)

**Hey! Hope your holidays were awesome! Here is part three to the "Bending" chapters I've made for this story. This is also the last one that exclusively deals with bending (at least for now) but there will be other chapters that are kind of branch off of this...if that makes sense...you'll understand when I post the next couple of chapters.**

**Its sorta short 'cause I wanna leave some of it to the reader's imagination on this one**

**Anyways, enjoy~**

* * *

"We should come up with a game where we can use our bending!" Hakoda suddenly suggests. He was currently lying in the grass and cloud watching with Kyoshi and Natsumi. The thirteen year olds and fourteen year old had managed to find a secret hideout for themselves in Republic City despite how busy and chaotic the area had become over the years. The place they found seemed strange in comparison to the rest of clean and orderly city, seeing as how it was practically becoming a landfill with all of the trash and broken junk lying around. Despite the trashy looks of the area, the trio always met up there after school to hang out before having to go home or fulfill other responsibilities.

"Like the earthbending tournament Aunt Toph used to compete in when she was younger?" Kyoshi asks excitedly.

"Yeah...sort of...I wasn't thinking of playing a game that dangerous though...," Hakoda replies.

"I haven't been practicing long enough for me to be able to control my bending fully...," Natsumi pouts. She had just recently discovered that she could firebend, thus allowing the trio to have three of the four elements at their whim.

"That's fine. You've done the basic training for firebending, right?" Kyoshi asks, sitting up in order to see Natsumi better.

"Yeah, why?"

"I have an idea of what kind of game we can play," Kyoshi gets up from her spot on the ground in order to look for something amongst the trash, "I know I saw them some where around here..." Kyoshi keeps wondering around causing Hakoda and Natsumi sit up from their spots and exchange confused looks. The two of them get up in order to see what Kyoshi was searching for.

"Found them!" Kyoshi yells, pointing to a stack of cement blocks.

"What do you want to do with those?" Hakoda asks, raising an eyebrow at his twin.

"Bend them," Kyoshi answers.

"In case you have forgotten, you're the only one that can earthbend, Kyo," Natsumi says, all-the-while mirroring Hakoda's eyebrow raise. Kyoshi frowns, giving her companions a defeated look.

"...What exactly are you hoping to do with them when you say bend them?" Hakoda asks, trying to understand what his sister was attempting to do.

"Like propel them forwards so we could hit stuff with them!" Kyoshi exclaims excitedly. Hakoda can't help but smirk at his sister's destructive nature. He thinks for a little while before he gets an idea.

"If we do that, we'll need to work a bit like a team rather than by ourselves," Hakoda says, still fully pondering his idea before saying anything more.

"What do you mean?" Natsumi asks.

"Kyoshi can you make the blocks into circles?" Hakoda asks,earning him a look from his sister that could only be read as "did you _really_ just ask me that?". Kyoshi easily bending the cement blocks into the shape her brother requested.

"If Kyoshi gets the cement circles off of the ground high enough, the two of us can use our bending to propel them. That being said, if Kyoshi wants to propel them she either has to do it after lifting our blocks or...," Hakoda explains

"Or lift them high enough for there to be enough time for everyone to bend them forward after they start dropping. We'd have to get the timing right," Natsumi finishes. Hakoda nods his head, still trying to think the idea through. He didn't want anyone to get hurt while they were trying this so he needed more time to think.

"Ooh Ooh Ooh! Let's try it!" Kyoshi pushes.

"Calm down a second, Kyo. I don't want you or Natsumi getting hurt, so we need to think this through first," Hakoda chides.

"You're such a worrywort! We're not fragile!" Kyoshi shouts.

"I'm quite aware of that," Hakoda mutters, recalling the multiple times his sister had managed to do extremely dangerous things and not kill or severely injure herself. Natsumi had also managed to avoid the same fate when she was coaxed into joining Kyoshi's dangerous stunts.

"What if we have some sort of armor or padding?" Natsumi pipes in.

"That could work...I guess,"

"Yay! Problem solved! Although...," Kyoshi starts.

"Although?" Natsumi and Hakoda repeat, bracing themselves for whatever over-the-top idea was about to come out of Kyoshi's mouth.

"We should find some more benders to play with us and then we can try bending the cement blocks at each other! Won't that be exciting!" Kyoshi exclaims.

"That sounds dangerous...," Hakoda comments.

"...Her excitement makes me think that this might only be dangerous for any other benders she invites to play... Remind me to always be on your team, Kyo," Natsumi adds in.

"Anyways, lets go find some padding first and make sure it will work well before we invite anyone else into this craziness," Hakoda suggests.

"Alright team! Let's get started! Ooh Ooh Ooh! I just had another idea," Kyoshi shouts.

"What now?" Hakoda asks, already making his way out of their meeting area to look for possible armor options. Natsumi raises her eyebrow again, waiting for Kyoshi's next suggestion.

"Let's ask Yuki if he knows what would be good for padding. He knows a lot about cloth and he's been using foam pads for some art project of his!"

"Okay. That's not too bad of an idea," Hakoda says, supporting Kyoshi's idea. Kyoshi smiles before grabbing Natsumi's hand and running off. Hakoda shakes his head, chuckling softly at his sister's enthusiasm, before running to catch up with the two girls. This was going to be an interesting experiment.

* * *

**First things first, thanks for reading. Leave comments and such if you would like.**

**Second of all, I totally think there were multiple people that came up with games that ultimately became pro-bending and so I love the idea of the Sukka twins also being some of the people who started playing it~**

**What about you?**


	33. Genius

**Haven't gotten a chance to write in Hiroyuki's POV yet so this happened! I still need to write in Yue's POV too but I haven't even gotten a chance to start on that chapter yet (I'm tossing idea's around for it but haven't gotten it typed up yet!). **

**Anyways, enjoy!**

* * *

Usually it didn't bother Hiroyuki to hear people referring to his siblings as geniuses. In fact, he felt proud to be their little brother. But for some reason, it annoyed him today. He didn't understand why he felt irked by it. Was he jealous? No one ever referred to him as a genius. Well that's not entirely true. His parents did and so did his older siblings but no one around the city did.

Hiroyuki frowns, stopping by a clothing store window. He was currently walking home from school and he had decided to make a detour at the shopping district in Republic City. He always felt calmer walking around the shops and seeing the clothes that were on display but today it just wasn't helping him. Instead of calming down, he could only continue replaying the situation that had been annoying him to no end. He had been talking to some friends at lunch and one of them brought up Yue and the fact that she was at the age of 14 was already attending Ba Sing Sae University because she was such a genius. This comment was soon followed by the bending game the twins had helped establish around the city as the work of a genius. And of course the conversation went on to talking about the new improvements Hiroyuki's father helped make to the relatively new invention called a radio.

"Wow, Yuki. You're family's full of geniuses, huh?" One of his friends said before continue to eat. Hiroyuki didn't even bother to respond considering no one referred to him or his mother as geniuses.

Hiroyuki continues walking, still thinking about that conversation and the many other times people talked about his family. Maybe he was only annoyed that no one outside of the police department and his family thought his mom was a genius as well. He had no reason to be annoyed with the fact that he wasn't being called a genius, not when he hadn't done anything to earn that classification. But his mom had certainly earned it. The Republic City Police Force certainly would have been in total chaos if it wasn't for his mother stepping in to help with setting it and the police academy up.

Hiroyuki reaches his house, unlocks the door, and walks into the kitchen. He smiles softly when he sees his mother sitting at the table, drinking tea and reading a letter from someone.

"Hi Yuki. How was school?" Suki asks, looking up at her son. Hiroyuki doesn't answer he just walks over to Suki and places a kiss on her temple before taking a seat beside her.

"Did something happen little one?" Suki asks, a concerned look on her face.

"I don't know…I don't think it is something I should be bothered by…," Hiroyuki starts.

Suki gets up from her seat and pours her youngest son a couple of tea.

"I made it a couple of minutes ago so it should still be warm," Suki smiles before coaxing Hiroyuki to tell her what's wrong. Hiroyuki sighs before retelling what happened with his friends and how he felt at the time.

"What makes you think you aren't a genius?" Suki asks.

"I haven't done anything amazing! I mean seriously! Yue's become a genius scholar who managed to get into Ba Sing Sae University at the age of 14! Koda and Kyo managed to invent an entire sport, rules and all, that's bound to become a professional league with the amount of popularity its been raking in! I haven't done anything!"

"Sure, your siblings did all of those things but you're selling yourself short. Everyone is a genius at something. Its just a matter of figuring out what that something is. To be honest, I think you've already found what you're a genius at but no one knows it yet since you haven't tried to show them."

Hiroyuki blinks a couple of times, wondering what his mother could be referring to. The only things he did in his free time were sew, sculpt, and draw, the results of which were amateur at best.

"Didn't your art teacher recommend you submit your latest piece into the school wide fine arts competition that is happening next month? She keeps stopping me, when I see her in the market, and tells me to talk you into submitting that sculpture."

"But…,"

"At least try little one. You'll never know what will happen until you do so," Suki smiles, ruffling her son's hair softly. Hiroyuki sighs before saying, "I'll submit it. But only because you think I should."

"Good."

"...Mama."

"Hmm?"

"Doesn't it bother you that no one refers to you as a genius?"

"Not really. I haven't really done anything to warrant being called that so there isn't any point in being bothered by it." Hiroyuki frowns softly, unable to notice that his mother thinks the same way as he does in terms of the idea of being called a genius.

"But you are a genius."

Suki smiles softly at her son before placing a kiss on his temple.

"Make sure to tell you teacher that you're submitting your sculpture in the competition. The amount of times she has brought it up when I run into her is becoming over the top."

"Well she's a bit over the top, herself," Hiroyuki chuckles.

"Also, while I'm telling you to do stuff. If you're going to keep cutting up the clothes I buy you and sewing them into new outfits, at least wear them."

Hiroyuki smiles before laughing happily, "Yes ma'am!"

Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he'd been a genius all along but no one got to see it since he never showed them. Well if that was the case, he just had to show them what he was made of. Hiroyuki smiles a bit wider.

* * *

**So yeah. This story is just kind of based on multiple things I personally believe: 1) Everyone is a genius at something! It's just of matter of figuring out what it is! 2) Sukka kids are definitely geniuses in there own ways.**

**I also wanted to showcase some similarities between Hiroyuki and his parents with this so hopefully I did a good job of that.**

**Also, in case you're wondering, yes-the first Yue POV chapter will be explaining the whole "getting into Ba Sing Sae University at age 14" situation I introduced but, like I said, I'm still tossing around ideas on how I want to go about doing that so it might be a while or it might not. Never know.**

**Anyways, comment if you want and I hope you enjoyed.**


	34. Siblings

**So this probably takes place like two years after "Genius" took place, just so you can get a better understanding of the time lapse.**

**Enjoy~**

* * *

"Hey, Hakoda! I heard that they were planning to make profession league of the Bending Wars Game you came up with!"

Hakoda was currently surrounded by several of his classmates at Yue Bay High School. He was trying to get to class but a lot of people were interested in asking him about the how the game he, along with _many_ other benders, in the area would be moving beyond the high school league that had been established in Republic City. The trio had been surprised by the way the game had grown over the years. It started out as just a game they played with three other benders on the weekend, then it became a club at their middle school since more people wanted to play. Eventually they heard that many other benders had come up with games very similar to theirs and they got to together to try blending their respective games together and it somehow became an official sport that was played in their high school, and other schools started having their official sports teams as well so matches would be held - pitting different teams from different schools against each other. Now there was going to be a professional league.

"Yeah. I heard that they're building an arena and everything for it. Are you guys planning on changing the name?"

"Yeah. It's going to be called Pro-Bending from now on," Hakoda answers. He decides to just finish answering the group's questions since he could barely walk a couple steps closer to his classroom with the way they were hovering around him. Despite having been hated by next to everyone in they're school when they were younger - due to the fact that they were the children of councilmen rather than lower or middle class citizens of Republic City - the Hakoda, Kyoshi, and Natsumi had gained quite the fan base after the bending game idea took off and was played very often at schools throughout the city. Hakoda was surprised to see girls who were still following him around though. He had warded many of them off after asking Natsumi out in front of everyone after their team had won the first match that was played against a team from another high school

Hakoda continues talking to them but his focus starts to shift towards a scene happening about six meters away from him. His little brother was currently surrounded by a group of students as well but the expression on Hiroyuki's face showed that the group wasn't being particularly friendly with him. Despite wanting to step in, Hakoda knew that he couldn't always defend Hiroyuki. So he waited to see if his younger brother would be able to handle the situation.

Hakoda allows himself to take his eyes off of his brother only to look back again when he suddenly hears Kyoshi's voice.

"Back off. He didn't do anything to you guys," Kyoshi says, standing in front of Hiroyuki. Hakoda sighs, the two of them had been having the discussion of letting Hiroyuki handle his own situations but she just couldn't sit idle as her little brother was being encircled like prey of hungry predators.

"Awww. Look at that Hiroyuki. Your big sister came to rescue you, again! You can't do anything yourself can you?"

Hiroyuki frowns.

"If anything you should be happy that I came to pick a fight with you instead of letting Hiroyuki do it! He'd kick all of your asses in a split second without even having to lay a finger on you," Kyoshi lies.

Hiroyuki can't help but chuckle at his sister's bluff. Generally speaking, the only way he got out of fights was by outsmarting people, but he didn't stand a chance in a fist fight, even with the self defense techniques he had learned from his mother and father.

"Sure...Move out of the way then Kyoshi. Let the ass kicker handle this then."

"Nope. Wouldn't want him to sully his hands on worthless bullies like you guys," Kyoshi refuses, putting her hands on her hips defiantly as she waits for their next move. Fighting was prohibited on school grounds so she had the right to defend herself if they decided not to back off.

"Fine then. Don't move."

Before Kyoshi knew it a fist was flying towards her and the next thing she knew Hakoda was standing beside her, his hand around the wrist of the boy who tried to throw a punch.

"Tsk tsk tsk," Hakoda clucks his tongue in disapproval. Hakoda immediately presses a pressure point on the boy's wrist, the way he had learned from his mother and Aunt Tylee. The boy retracts his hand immediately, glaring at the half water tribesman.

"You asked for it!" he growls, signalling for his friends to back him up. One of his friends quickly throws himself at Hakoda. Hakoda dodges quickly trying to get the other boy away from his younger siblings. Hakoda frowns when he notices he can't get very far thanks to the crowd encircling the spectacle that was currently happening. Kyoshi also finds herself dodging when two of the bullies attack her. While the group of bullies are busy with his older siblings, Hiroyuki quickly reaches for a water bottle from his backpack.

"Koda!" Hiroyuki shouts before tossing the bottle to his brother. Hakoda dives for it, catching it and quickly opening it so that he could bend its contents. Hiroyuki looks over to Kyoshi, inwardly cursing himself for not taking care of the situation himself. Kyoshi didn't have any earth to bend in the school. There were a couple of classroom filled with rocks for geology classes and history of earthbending but that was on a lower floor of the building and there was no way Hiroyuki would be able to leave the encircled area. Hiroyuki searches through his backpack frantically hoping that by some chance some stones ended up in it. What should he do?

"No earth for you to bend, huh? I guess that means you can't fight, mud slug! Don't worry, we'll end this soon," one of Kyoshi's opponents jests. Kyoshi just laughs in response, causing the two boys to become annoyed. The duo run towards her again and instead of making a move to dodge again, Kyoshi chi-blocks one of them and flips the other over her shoulder, sending them into a wall of lockers nearby.

"Who says I can't fight because I don't have anything to bend. Just who the hell do you think my parents are?" Kyoshi smirks, dusting her hands off. Kyoshi turns her head when she hears the lockers behind her clanking loudly and finds the boy that had attacked Hakoda frozen against them. She smirks again before walking towards Hiroyuki.

"You okay?" Kyoshi asks. Hakoda stays where he is standing but the look on his face was easily asking the same question. Hiroyuki nods his head about to verbally answer when he notices that the boy who had tried to punch Kyoshi, when she had interfered earlier, was trying to sneak up on Hakoda. Hiroyuki grabs a pair of scissors from his the sewing kit in his bag and throws them at the boy, the sharpened tools barely missing the boy's head and puncturing the nearby wall lockers. The boy immediately throws his hands up in surrender, shaken by the close encounter with the sharpened scissors.

"Told you not to mess with him," Kyoshi says before turning back to Hiroyuki.

"Nice job, Yuki! I forgot all about him!" Hakoda praises, "You should totally see if Aunt Mai will teach you to throw knives. Also, I'm pretty sure you're going to make the school ban the use of scissors on campus."

"Only sharpened scissors," Hiroyuki chuckles.

"Hakoda! Kyoshi! Hiroyuki! My office now!"

The three siblings turn towards the voice, only to see that it was coming from their highly infuriated principal, Mr. Keung.

"...Yes sir...," they say in unison, all the while glancing at each other in worry.

* * *

The three of them sit in the office of Yue Bay High School's principal. Kyoshi is leaning back in the seat, her arms stretched out behind her so that her head can rest on them. She also had her feet up on the desk as if she owned it - she wasn't definitely wasn't new to the principal's office. Hakoda watches the seconds tick away on the clock that was on the wall right above the Mr. Keung's desk - he rarely ended up here and if he did it was always with Kyoshi. Hiroyuki twiddles his thumbs in nervousness - this was his first time in here for bad reasons. He had come in before to receive invitations to compete in art showcases and awards but never because he was in trouble. Mr. Keung finally walks in with files in his hands. He sighs taking a seat.

"First of all, Kyoshi, both of your feet do not belong on this desk," he says. Kyoshi responds by taking only one of her feet off of the desk and is about to ask if only one belongs there but decides not to do so when she notices that the principal is in a worse mood than usual. She quickly gets the other foot off of the desk. The principal sighs again.

"Now let's talk about the fact that the three of you were fighting other students and destroying school property."

"They started it," Kyoshi retorts immediately.

"I'm quite aware of that but that doesn't mean you start a full-scale fight just because someone else throws a punch."

"So you know they threw the first punch. We were just protecting ourselves."

"Fighting is prohibited here, Miss Kyoshi. Bending is also prohibited unless students are in a class, club, or sport where bending is allowed, Mister Hakoda."

Hakoda frowns, about to open his mouth but Mr. Keung raises his hand, signalling that he is not done speaking.

"Not only was doing these things dangerous in general, you put other students in danger. Also, the four boys you were fighting are likely going to need to go to the nearby hospital for some of their treatment," Mr. Keung then turns to Hiroyuki, "I'm very disappointed that you were involved in this as well, Mister Hiroyuki. Throwing scissors of all things. I will have to look into banning sharpened scissors." Kyoshi seems unfazed by what is being said, Hakoda just seems annoyed, and Hiroyuki seems like he is on the verge of tears.

"Might as well ban writing utensils, too," Kyoshi mutters under her breath.

"I'm afraid that this time I will have to tell your parents of this happening."

Kyoshi and Hakoda don't seem bothered by this but Hiroyuki is strongly fighting the urge to cry at that very moment. The twins weren't too bothered considering the few times the principal called their parent's it was generally their father that he called and Sokka rarely disciplined them for causing trouble and getting into fights. If anything he tended to indirectly promote mischievous behavior.

"I will call your mother this time, since I'm sure that she will actually straighten you three out properly," Mr. Keung says, picking up the telephone at his desk. Kyoshi and Hakoda's eyes widen in fear while Hiroyuki can't control himself and bursts into tears.

"H-hey now! There's no need to call our mom...P-please don't call her!," Kyoshi stutters, trying to negotiate her way out of Mr. Keung calling their mother. Suki was definitely the parent that gave out punishments and handled disciplining. She made sure the kids never did whatever they had done to earn punishment or disciplining ever again. The siblings loved their mother but she was definitely scary whenever they misbehaved.

"It's either suspension or calling your mother. I'm sure your mother will be a lot more lenient if we called her rather than you having to tell her yourselves that you have been suspended."

Kyoshi suddenly gets out of her seat and dramatically lies down on the floor. This usually entertained her brothers but they were currently feeling too much fear to laugh at Kyoshi. The principal commences ringing up their mother. She answers after the first ring.

"Hello. Chief Suki. This is Principal Keung. I'm sorry to bother you in the middle of your work."

"It's no bother. Might I ask which kid you're calling about today?"

"All three, actually."

Suki goes silent on the other end of the line before asking, "What happened?"

Mr. Keung explains the situation as the three kids let their imaginations on their impending punishments run wild.

"I see. Would it be okay if they go back to class for now and I come see them in your office after school? I want them to spend the day reflecting before they go home," Suki states.

"Yes ma'am. That is fine. I'll see you this afternoon," Mr. Keung finishes before hanging up.

The three kids look at him, wondering what their mother had said.

"Your mother wants each of you to attend classes for the rest of the day and reflect on what you did. After your classes, you will come back to my office and your mother will meet you here. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," they all whisper, getting up from their seat and making their way out of the office and towards their respective classes, only stopping to give quick goodbyes before first period started.

* * *

The three kids spent the day unable to concentrate on anything happening in class and barely talking to anyone. Talks about the fight that had occurred earlier that morning were still flying about but it was easy to see that everyone was confused about why the trio had defeated looks on their face despite winning the fight. After school, they made their way to Mr. Keung's office as they had been instructed. The trio stand in front of the closed door, not wanting to enter the room. They could hear their mother conversing with the principal, which made them even less excited to enter the room. Kyoshi works up her courage first, opening the door. Suki looks over her shoulder towards the door with a look Kyoshi could only describe as "you're definitely in trouble" plastered on her face. Any and all courage Kyoshi had left the moment she made eye contact with her mother. Kyoshi quickly tries to close the door but stops when her mother says her name with a hint of anger. Kyoshi reopens the door and walks in first followed by her brothers.

"Hi Mama!" Kyoshi says, trying to pretend like seeing their mother in the principal's office was a pleasant surprise. Suki makes no response other than signalling for her kids to take a seat in the three other chairs in the room. They do so immediately and exchange looks. This was going to be an interesting meeting.

* * *

"Over 4,000 gold coins just to buy new lockers," Kyoshi whispers, "Can't they just fix them?"

"Considering some of them are extremely dented and one has a hole from Yuki's scissors, I don't think so," Hakoda whispers back. They were currently walking back home with Hiroyuki and their mother. No one had spoken since the meeting and it was definitely starting to scare the twins even more. Their mother had yet to actually reprimand them and they knew it was coming. Their hearts beat even faster out of fear when Suki suddenly stops walking and turns towards them. They were going to get it! Or at least that's what they thought. They find themselves caught off guard by Suki suddenly pulling them into a hug.

"Good job."

Suki pulls away from her kids, while the kids exchange extremely confused looks.

"W-what?"Hiroyuki stutters. Suki smiles, assuaging the kids fears of discipline.

"You looked out for each other so that's all that matter to me. If you had been the one's to start the fight and had no reason for doing so, it would have been a whole other story."

"Then why did you act like we were in trouble in the office?" Hakoda asks shyly.

"Mr. Keung was hoping you all would get scolded. If you didn't, he was planning on suspending the three of you so I had to make it seem like you were going to be disciplined throughly. You didn't know Mama could pretend like that, huh?"

Kyoshi giggles in response, happily hugging her mother despite how uncool it might seem for a seventeen year old to be doing so.

"You have some awesome acting skills Mama. Where did you learn to pretend like that?" Kyoshi asks giddily.

"Your dad and I used to pull pranks all of the time with Aunt Toph and I always ended up being the distraction for them."

"What! You pulled pranks with Aunt Toph and daddy?" Hakoda asks incredulously. Suki nods.

"Wait! Then why do we get scolded for pulling pranks?" Kyoshi asks, removing her arms from around her mother and crossing them in front of herself.

"I only scold you for the crazy ones. Just like I what I had to do to your father."

"How are they crazy?" Kyoshi asks.

"Using chemicals from the science labs to create an explosion...," Hakoda reminds Kyoshi.

"Disconnecting some of the pipes in the school building so that school ended up flooding...with sewage water...," Hiroyuki adds.

"Also, there was that time when-," Hakoda continues.

"Okay. Okay. Those were a bit over the top," Kyoshi retorts before hugging her mother again.

"Let's go home for now, okay?" Suki suggests. The kids nod their head in agreement, happy that their day didn't end in punishments.

* * *

**Yay! I hope the fight scene was okay. I'm still not particularly good at writing those, or writing in general. **

**Anyways, hope you enjoyed. Leave a comment if you wish~**


	35. Shopping

Out of all of the hobbies Sokka enjoyed, he had to admit shopping was definitely his favorite. Browsing through the shops, complaining about how expensive stuff was, putting ensembles together, trying out free samples of food. What wasn't there to love about it?

On the other hand, Suki wasn't particularly fond of it. If she had to go shopping, she went and bought exactly what she needed. Nothing more. Nothing less. There was nothing worse than walking around aimlessly and for hours upon hours like she was currently doing with her boyfriend. She generally could handle shopping for long periods of time when she was with Sokka, since there never seemed to be a dull moment with anything that man was involved in, but she still found herself slowly going crazy as the two of them moved from stall to stall. To make matters worse, Sokka had taken it upon himself to spot out clothing he thought would look good on Suki and has been forcing her to try stuff on. After trying on clothes in the fifth shop of the day, she had honestly had enough.

"Sokka, why don't we just look for some clothes for you? I don't need any new clothes," Suki explains, hoping her boyfriend will pick up on the fact that she was completely done with this activity. He's either ignoring her or completely oblivious because they were still standing inside of one of the stalls that sold clothing.

"But this dress would look sooo good on you!" Sokka exclaims, holding out a green and black dress. Suki had to admit it was pretty but that wasn't the point.

"I have enough clothing already, darling. If anything you need new clothes rather than just patching up your old clothing. Also, you've been getting taller so your clothes aren't going to fit you for much longer," Suki tries.

She sighs when Sokka continues browsing through the rest of the garments in the shop, still holding on to the green and black dress he had found just moments ago. Sokka suddenly pauses, having spotted something. He suddenly breaks out into a smile before grabbing a short-sleeved corset top in front of him. The top was a light brown while the corset itself was a darker shade of brown. He looks around quickly before smiling again, quickly making his way to the other side of the shop - the part they had already browsed through, and picking up a pair of pants that were the same color as the corset. He suddenly turns to Suki holding both the top and pants up to her, a look of triumph on his face. Suki frowns.

"Do I need to wear a corset for some reason?" she grumbles. Sokka rolls his eyes.

"You don't have to cinch it up. Just think of it like an accessory. It makes the light brown cloth look less plain. I know you prefer plain clothes but you should at least get a couple of articles of clothing that aren't absolutely plain or at the very least have more than one color," Sokka reasons, walking over to his girlfriend and holding the top against her to see if its the right size.

"Who the hell would ever see a torture device as an accessory?" Suki mumbles as her boyfriend now holds up the pair of pants against her.

"A belt. Wear it like a belt," Sokka says before handing her the top, pants, and dress, "Please, try them on."

Suki frowns at the clothes in her hands and is about to personally go put each article of clothing back where they came from and walk out of the shop but makes the mistake of looking back up at her boyfriend. He was currently pouting at her and giving her sad sheep-puppy eyes.

Suki sighs. He wasn't planning on letting go of this ensemble. She finds herself tempted to throw the clothes on the ground but then she remembers she's supposed to be more lady-like and mature than that. She sighs again before giving into Sokka and entering the small dressing area located in the back of the shop. The dressing area was nothing more than a mirror, a chair, and few curtains covering each side of the closed off area, enough to comfortably allow shoppers try clothes on in privacy. Suki decides to try the dress on first, setting down the clothes Sokka handed her on the chair and quickly changing out of her clothes. Just as quickly, she manages to shimmy into the dress, immediately taking note that the dress was rather short once she gets completely into it. She sighs for the millionth time that day, wondering if her boyfriend had purposely chosen the dress since it was short or if he actually had no clue of its shortness. She decides to interrogate him first before showing him. If he'd planned this, she wasn't going to give him the view he wanted - it would be his punishment for dragging her aimlessly around all day. She was perfectly fine going shopping with him if he already knew what he wanted to buy but this wandering around - just browsing - was killing her slowly.

"Sokka?" Suki tests, wondering if her boyfriend was even near the dressing area or if he was off trying to find more clothes again.

"Yes, darling?" He answers immediately.

"Did you know this was going to be so short, dearest?" Suki asks, a bit of discontent slipping into her voice.

"...No. It's short?"

"Yep."

"Really? My short or your short?" Let's be honest here, Suki thought skirts that ended below her knees were pretty short. Sokka, on the other hand, pretty much only thought something was short if it was barely covering 1/4 of Suki's thighs.

"Your short."

"...Let me see..."

Suki frowns trying to figure out if her boyfriend was feigning ignorance or truly didn't know. The two of them had only been dating for six months now so she hadn't quite figured out any obvious signs to let her know that he was bluffing. She sighs again before just giving up and opening the curtain closest to Sokka's voice.

Sokka quirks an eyebrow when he sees Suki as a small smirk appears on his lips. Suki frowns realizing he was totally pretending to not know.

"Spirits, your legs are amazing...,"Sokka comments. Suki rolls her eyes before forcefully closing the curtain. "The dress looks amazing on you!" Sokka adds, a few seconds afterwards but by then Suki's already starting to get out of the stupid dress so she can hurry up and try the other outfit Sokka handed her.

She gets into the trousers without any problems but finds herself confused as hell at the corset top. Obviously she had to untie the corset first to get it on and obviously it was meant to cover her torso but what the hell is up was going on with the sleeves? She mumbles a quick _what?_ under her breathe as she tries to set the sleeves on her shoulders like she would do with any other top but they didn't seem to want to stay. She could hear Sokka chuckling from outside the dressing area.

"The top should kinda look like the top for your Fire Nation outfit so its technically sleeveless. The part you think are sleeves are like the arm bracelets that go with your Fire Nation outfit, darling," Sokka explains, knowing quite well what his girlfriend was struggling with.

Suki sighs again, fixing the top appropriately before looking in the mirror. It wasn't too bad. Sokka had an eye for matching things, she had to at least admit that. Altogether the outfit met her standards as far as skin coverage went as well. The only things really showing were her arms, shoulders, and her collar bones. That being said, the top was rather big and she didn't exactly have much holding up the sleeveless top.

"How is it?" Sokka asks, curiosity filling his voice.

"I admit that its not too bad. The top's kinda big though," Suki retorts.

"We can tie the corset a bit - just enough for the top to stay - or I can find a smaller size."

"I guess we can try tying the corset first..."

Suki draws the curtains open again and steps out of it before turning around so Sokka can tie the corset up. He ties it quickly and requests she step back so he can properly see the outfit on her. She sighs again but fulfills his request. He smiles immediately.

"Looks nice. Do you like it?" Sokka asks, seeking confirmation from her. Suki nods her head in confirmation and finds herself unable to keep herself from smiling when her boyfriend's grin spreads even wider at her answer. "Let's buy this one then!" Sokka exclaims.

"You said we were just looking around today, not actually buying...," Suki remarks already going back into the dressing area to change.

"Yeah but that looks nice on you and you seem comfortable in it and how often do we honestly agree on clothes for you?"

"True but I don't like spending this much money on clothes," Suki says, remembering the prices written on each table Sokka had found the clothes at.

"I'll buy it for you, I have enough!" Sokka pushes.

"Sokka..."

"I know. I know. You hate when I buy you stuff but come on, just this once!"

Suki sighs, she finishes putting her original attire back on and grabs the clothes Sokka had her try on. She was already planning on saying no. She hated when Sokka spent money on her. There was no need to waste his money on clothes for her, especially considering she didn't actually need them. She was just about to refuse his offer when she opened the curtains to see her boyfriend giving her the sheep-puppy eyes again. _This isn't going to work on me this time! _she thinks but the longer she looks at him the more she finds herself giving in. She sighs yet again.

"Fine! But I'm paying you back later when I get the money!" Suki retorts, walking off to put the dress back. Sokka follows behind her with a smile plastered on his face again.

"Yay!" Sokka takes the remaining ensemble and quickly pays for it before his girlfriend can change her mind, "Also, I'm not letting you pay me back."

Suki frowns immediately at that statement, "Sokka!" The water tribesmen just smiles before kissing his girlfriend's forehead and holding out his hand. She continues to sport a frown on her face but takes hold of his hand. After a few more seconds, she just sighs and says, "Can we please go find you some clothes now? The amount of patches on your trousers is getting ridiculous."

* * *

Suki was honestly overjoyed when a member of her family started enjoying shopping at the same level as her husband. Despite having known Sokka for over two decades, she could never fully handle long shopping trips with him. Nothing could describe the happiness she felt when her husband found out their youngest son enjoyed shopping and clothes just as much as him - if not more. She always found it adorable just how entranced Hiroyuki seemed with everything his father said about the clothing materials and designs of clothes. That being said she found it less adorable when her husband and son seemed to always come home with a backpack full of new clothing and a report of just how much money they had spent. Even then, she had to be a little bit happy that her son at least made use of the clothes and didn't just tuck them into the corner of his room and never look at them again like his father did. Hiroyuki would either wear the ensembles he created with his dad as they were or - when he got older - made alterations to them before ultimately tucking them into the corner of his room a week later and forgetting about them. Suki, after having looked at said corner way to many times, ended up having to make the rule of "no more buying clothes unless he either sells or wears the ones he already has but hasn't worn more than once" though. Sokka snickered at Suki when she made the rule, at least until he was told that it applied to him too.


	36. Love Stories

Suki adored hearing Sokka's stories. It didn't matter whether the stories were boring or exhilarating, Suki would always listen to them. The longer Suki stayed with Sokka the more she enjoyed hearing Sokka's tales and adventures.

Whenever he told them the first time, they were almost always true - with only mild exaggerations about his bravery and awesomeness or the amount of women checking him out. The first time hearing his stories were nice in their own way but the part Suki adored and enjoyed most was hearing his stories for the second, third, fourth, or more time. There were always changes in the plot, typically to make him look better. Suki couldn't ever keep from laughing whenever she heard something different. Sometimes she would keep silent and see just where his imagination would take the story next and other times she would stop him with a "but I thought something else happened" or a "that's not what you said last time" all the while smiling and trying to breathe in between fits of laughter.

Sokka had a way with words and his imagination was something else altogether. Suki just couldn't help but admire that about him.

* * *

Sokka loved telling Suki about his adventures. He loved the look of anticipation on her face before he started, loved the smiles that appeared on her face as he spoke, loved hearing her beautiful laughter at the jokes he had told during those adventures, and he loved the fact that she was just simply willing to listen to him - even if he had already told her about those adventures several times. She never once complained, she'd simply smile and playfully correct him whenever he didn't say something the same way he had told it previously.

He loved cuddling with her and getting to just watch her facial expressions throughout his story. There was a point where he wondered why he loved telling her his stories so much. He generally only ever talked about his adventures to little kids who were eager to hear the war veteran's tales but he soon realized that it was because of the fact that she was still like a child in that manner. Eager to listen and see how the story unfolds.

* * *

Every night the same request was made.

"Daddy! Daddy! Tell us a story!" Sokka and Suki's four kids would yell excited during bed time.

"Okay. Okay. Did every one finish getting ready for bed first?" Sokka would answer.

"Yes!" Would be the response, with varying levels of truth.

"Okay. Now what story shall I tell tonight?" Sokka would ask, pretending the be stroking a non-existent beard. Suki would always find herself happy she and Katara had "lost" Sokka's Wang Fire beard so he couldn't pull it for times like these. While the kids may have found it funny, both Suki and Katara would only feel the need to face palm themselves immediately at the sight of it.

All of the kids would yell various tales until, Sokka told them to use their inside voices and some order was reestablished in the chaos. Eventually Sokka would choose based off of who got to choose last time and which stories he hadn't told in a while. He would go through the story, incorporating different voices, hand motions, and sound effects that enthralled their kids. The three youngest would listen to the stories and never question the validity of any of it while Yue occasionally teased her father about pieces of the story changing since the last time he told it. Sokka would always deny changing it before giving her a huge grin that was immediately returned with one of her own.

Suki could help but smile every time her kids made this request and could help but nostalgically look back on these times when the request for stories became less and less. At least until Sokka got grand kids that he could pass down his love of stories to.

* * *

Sokka walks into his apartment in Ba Sing Sae after returning from Aang's house in the Upper Ring. Finding Suki lounging around on her stomach on his bed, reading scrolls didn't particularly surprise him. His girlfriend had always been a workaholic, so he had just assumed she was doing paper work again.

"Hey," Sokka greets, walking passed his bed to set his bag down on a nearby chair. He walks over to his dresser in order to change clothes. He manages to get out of his shirt before deciding he didn't really feel like changing or bothering to put his top back on.

"Hey," Suki returns, distractedly, "How was your day?"

"Okay, I guess. Aang was spouting out nonsense about wanting to start a new city again," Sokka answers, "How was yours?"

Suki doesn't respond, she just continues looking at the scroll in front of her. Sokka walks up to the side of the bed she is lying on and crosses his arms, wondering if she will notice that he was standing there. She doesn't. Sokka looks at her, taking note her facial expression. It was a mixture of distracted and something else that was quite familiar.

"Whatcha reading?" Sokka prods.

"...Nothing...," Suki retorts hesitantly, causing Sokka to lift an eyebrow in question. Suki would usually just tell Sokka what she was reading but she had chosen not to... Sokka moves closer to the scroll in an attempt to read its contents but Suki suddenly closes the scroll, hoping that her boyfriend didn't manage to get a glimpse of anything in it.

"...Seriously what the hell are you reading? I'm curious now," Sokka squints his eyes at her in suspicion.

"I said nothing...," Suki pouts, wishing her boyfriend would move on from the subject. She finally looks at her boyfriend in order to see if he would back off anytime soon. He wasn't planning on it. Sokka makes a quick grab for the scroll but Suki rolls to the other side of the bed to avoid him. She gets up and tries to run over to the door of his bedroom. But Sokka blocks her off. Sokka takes note of her facial expression again before slowly realizing what that familiar something else in her expression was. Lust. Sokka pretends to make another grab for the scroll, making Suki only bother to move her occupied hand out of the way, but he grabs her by the waist instead. She noticeably panics trying to get out of his grasp before throwing the scroll towards the door. Sokka lets go of her in order to get the scroll but Suki grabs his wrist and pulls him back towards her.

"D-don't...please?," Suki pouts, her voice still a bit shaky in panic. Sokka had to admit that this was the closest his girlfriend has gotten to begging him for something. He slightly wanted to listen to her in order to not make her upset but, at the same time, the amount of energy she was putting into keeping him away from the scroll made him way too suspicious. Was she cheating on him or something? The thought made Sokka's heart drop despite his desire to believe otherwise. The image of his girlfriend of four years in the arms of another man made him begin to panic too.

He quickly escaped from her grasp and made a dash for the scroll again. The moment he gets it in his hands, Suki snatches it away again and rushes back towards his bed. She plops down on the side she had originally been lounging on and makes an attempt to crawl to the other side once she notices Sokka coming towards her again. Sokka pulls her back by her feet before she can get over though.

"H-hey! Why-" Suki is cut off by Sokka suddenly pinning her to the bed by lying on top of her, "Dammit, you're heavy!" Despite usually cracking a smile at that comment, Sokka is too focused on getting the scroll. He quickly snatches it from her before opening it. Sokka blinks a couple of times as he scans the characters on the page. He had been expecting a love letter or something, not what he was currently reading...

"Er...where'd you get this from?" Sokka asks, glancing over the words on the parchment. He suddenly understood why his girlfriend had such a distracted and lust-filled facial expression plastered on her face as she read the story he was currently skimming.

"Mai gave it to me, saying that I would enjoy it," Suki sighs, her cheeks flaming up in embarrassment, "Can you get off of me, please?" Sokka gets off immediately, sitting down on his bed to continue investigating the scroll in his hands. Suki sits up too, deciding to sit beside him to gauge his reaction.

"Didn't think Mai was into this kind of stuff," Sokka notes, his own cheeks reddening as he continued to read the scroll, "Uh...are you enjoying this?"

"I guess...it's interesting to say the least."

"Didn't think you'd be into such raunchy love stories either..."

"I'm just reading what I was given...I hadn't expected the story to have so many...intimate scenes."

"Why are you still reading it then?"

"...'Cause it peeked my curiosity."

"Why were you trying to hide it...?"

"'Cause...I'm weird for reading it, right?"

"I'm honestly only thinking that you're naughtier than I had previously thought," Sokka smirks, before returning his attention back to the scroll, "Wanna try this...?" Sokka suddenly sits the scroll in front of her and points out of one of the many kinky scenes in the story. Suki blushes before shyly agreeing.


End file.
